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DUKE 
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DIVINITY SCHOOL 
LIBRARY 








Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
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httos://archive.org/details/bibleornobible01 amer 





Bible or tho Bible? 





Report of the First Convention of 





The American Bible Zeague 


fin Hew Vork City, May 3, A, and 5, 1904. 


Reprinted from “ The Bible Student and Teacher” 





Price 25 Cents 


Rew Vork 
The American Bible DBeague 


37239 Bible House 





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Copyright, 1904 
by 
Zhe American Bible Beague 


Report of the 


ve Ss 
SURO. 
ASI ZS 


Convention in Mew York. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


The Marble Collegiate Church, New 
York City, hospitably opened its doors 
for the first Convention of The Amer- 
ican Bible League, May 3, 4 and 5, 1904. 
The sessions began on Tuesday evening, 
May 3, and ended on Thursday at mid- 
day. The speakers were representative 
men in various branches of the Evan- 
gelical Church. The aim of the conven- 
tion was to give a bird’s-eye view of the 
present situation that has resulted from 
tlre wide dissemination of the views of 
the rationalistic critics concerning the 
Bible. The speakers were selected with 
this end in view. Leaders of philosophic 
breadth of vision were chosen to set 
forth the nature of the present conflict 
between faith and disbelief; preachers 
and pastors of large experience and wide 
observation in the work of the churches, 
to portray the practical consequences of 
the critical assault upon the Bible; 
Biblical scholars of the first rank to ex- 
hibit the groundlessness of the claims of 
the radical critics; and men in touch 
with the work of instruction in the Bible, 
to present suggestions regarding the best 
methods of leading to a better syste- 
matic and constructive study of the 
Bible as the Word of God. 

It was a source of regret that, owing 
to previously formed engagements in 
connection with ecclesiastical assemblies, 
seminary commencements, etc., and to 
the lateness of the notice sent out, 
many of the leaders most deeply interest- 
ed in the movement, especially those re- 
siding at a distance, were unable to be 
present. Among the many thus neces- 
sarily debarred from attendance may be 
mentioned the names of President H'enry 


A. Buttz, of Drew Theological Seminary, 
Professor Willis J. Beecher, of Auburn 
Theological Seminary, Professor Wil- 


liam M. McPheeters, of Columbia Theo- 


logical Seminary, Principal J. P. Shera- 
ton, of Wyckliffe College, Toronto, and 
Principal William Caven, of Knox Col- 
lege, Toronto, all among the original 
corporate members of the League. 

The attendance upon the meetings was 
unexpectedly large, and the interest and 
enthusiasm were of marked character, 
and grew from the opening session to 
the close. The daily press gave constant 
and sympathetic attention and large 
space to the utterances and acts of the 
Convention, thereby contributing largely 
to its success. Believing that one of the 
great New York dailies was right in 
looking upon the Convention as “an 
event of pivotal importance,” the League 
determined first to print a complete re- 
port of the proceedings in the May and 
June issues of The Bible Student and 
Teacher, and later to give it the widest 
possible circulation in pamphlet or book 
form. It has been encouraged to do this 
by assurances coming from every quar- 
ter of the globe, of a marvelous awaken- 
ing of interest in its organized move- 
ment for the study, defense and dissem- 
ination of the Bible as the Word of God 
and the Way of Life. 

The President of the League, Mr. Wil- 
liam Phillips Hall, presided during the 
Convention, communicating something 
of his own enthusiasm to the proceed- 
ings; and Rey. Dr. David James Burrell, 
pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church, 
took charge of the devotional exercises 
with peculiar acceptance throughout the 
sessions. 


Report of the Convention in Detail 


TUESDAY EVENING SESSION, MAY 3. 


8:00 P. M. President William Phillips Hall in the Chair. 





OPENING DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 


The Convention was called to order at 
8 o’clock by the President, and the open- 
ing devotional exercises immediately fol- 
lowed. 


Prayer by Dr. Burrell: 

God, be with us and bless us, and cause 
Thy face to shine upon us; and be gra- 
cious unto us and help us in this service 
to glorify Thee. We ask it in the name 
of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who taught 
us when we pray to say (the congrega- 
tion join in the Lord’s Prayer). 

Dr. Burrell: Let us sing Hymn No. 776. 

“The Church’s one foundation 
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord.” 

Responsive reading from the Nine- 

teenth Psalm. 


Prayer by Rev. Dr. Schmauk: 

Almighty and ever-living God, before 
Thou hadst formed the earth and the 
world, even from everlasting to everlast- 
ing Thou art God. By Thy word didst 
Thou form the heavens and the earth; by 
Thy word are we established in our 
earthly life; by Thy word do the seas 
and the tides and all the orbs of heaven 


move continually in their courses; by 
Thy word are we redeemed; by Thy 
word we walk by faith; and in Thy word, 
trusting, and hoping and going onward, 
we shall fight the battle of life until, by 
the promises of Thy word and by the 
redemption of Thy Living Son, who was 
before all worlds, the Eternal Word, we 
shall see the truth as it is forever. 

O, mighty God, do Thou establish 
what Thou hast ordained from of old. 
Do Thou grant life, and strength, and 
power in Thy Spirit to the testimonies 
that have come down from the ages. Do 
Thou enable us to discern, and also to 
make clear to all round about us, that 
God still lives, that His Word still 
stands, and that we are Thine, safe in 
Thine everlasting keeping, and through 
all the ages in Jesus Christ, our Lord. 
Amen! 

Dr. Burrell: Now, let us all sing No. 
85: 

“How precious is the book divine, 

By inspiration given.” 

We will sing the whole five verses, and 

will all sing No. 85. 


STATEMENT OF THE AIMS OF THE LEAGUE 
STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL. 


In reverently opening the first Conven- 
tion of The American Bible League in 
the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus 
Christ, it gives us pleasure to state that 
the object of the League is “to organize 
the friends of the Bible, to promote a 
more reverential and conservative study 
of the Sacred Volume, and to maintain 
the historic faith of the Church in its di- 
vine inspiration and supreme authority 
as the Word of God.” 

To realize most fully its objects the 


League proposes to lead Christians to a 
better and more comprehensive and com- 
plete mastery of the Bible itself; espe- 
cially as found in the English versions; 
and, in carrying out this purpose, to pro- 
mote everywhere a devout, constructive 
study of the Bible as a whole, and in its 
various books and parts, by the common 
sense and rational, or truly scientific 
method, and with the aid of all the light 
that can be thrown upon it from all 
sources, thereby to meet and counteract 





| the errors now current concerning its 
truthfulness, integrity and authority as~ 
the Word of God. 

To represent the League as having 
been organized to oppose the work of 
The Religious Education Association, as 
has been unfortunately done by some, is 
to misrepresent most grossly the facts in 
the case. As a matter of possible histor- 
ical interest, the primary planning of the 
organization of an American Bible 
League by the late Rev. Dr. George T. 
Purves, Rev. Dr. Willis J. Beecher, Rev. 
Dr. Howard Osgood, Rev. Dr. Daniel S. 
Gregory and others, including the speak- 
er, took place some five years ago—sev- 
eral years before the Religious Education 
Association was organized or publicly 
known. 

If great spiritual and moral needs jus- 
tify the organization of great movements 
to meet them, and if great perils justify 
great and extraordinary alarms, then The 
American Bible League is justified, not 
only in its organization, but also in the 
great Christian educational movement it 
aims to promote, and in the extraordi- 
nary alarm it endeavors to sound in view 
of the active and widespread workings 
of what appears to be nothing less than 
a great scholastic apostasy in Christen- 
dom at the present time. 

Fascinated by a strange scholarship 
multitudes among the leaders in the 
Christian ministry and educational work 
have turned aside in large part from the 
faith which was delivered once for all 


to the saints, to worsnip at the shrine 
of a rationalistic criticism that destroys 
individual faith in the divine origin, in- 
tegrity, inspiration and authority of the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, and that, sooner or later, logic- 
ally and inevitably leads to the denial of 
the incarnation, omniscience, atonement 
and supreme authority of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

In pursuance of the purpose the 
League aims to accomplish we propose 
in this Convention to show: 

First—That the Bible is now being 
subjected to a scholastic assault of un- 
paralleled danger; 

Second.—That the practical conse- 
quences of this assault are in evidence in 
the demoralization of conduct and edu- 
cation, and in evil influence on the min- 
istry and missions; 

Third.—That the assault is based upon 
groundless claims of a false scholarship; 
and 

Fourth—-That the methods proposed 
by the League will fully meet the impera- 
tive needs of the situation, and lead to 
a recovery of faith in the Bible as the 
Word of God, and to the enthronement 
of our Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts of 
men. 

In carrying out our great work, we 
shall meet Biblical experts with Biblical 
experts of the highest rank, and a nega- 
tive, destructive scholarship, with a posi- 
tive, constructive scholarship that, please 
God, shall win the day. 





STATEMENT OF DR. GREGORY, THE GENERAL SECRETARY. 


President Hall: It now gives me very 
great pleasure to announce as the first 
speaker of the evening, the Rev. Daniel 
S. Gregory, the General Secretary of The 
American Bible League. Dr. Gregory is 
widely known as ex-President of the 
Lake Forest University, as Managing 
Editor of that most useful work, the 
Standard Dictionary, and later as Editor 
of The Homiletic Review, but most par- 
ticularly as a staunch champion of the 
faith once delivered to the saints. 

Dr. Gregory will express to you more 
fully the objects and plans of the League, 
as introductory to the principal address- 


es of the evening. Permit me to intro- 


duce Dr. Gregory. 





Dr. Gregory: I have been asked, not 
to make an address, but to make a state- 
ment concerning the objects and aims 
of the League. 

The American Bible League stands 
first, last and all the time for the Bible as 
the inspired Word of God, the only way 
of Life for lost sinners, and the only au- 
thoritative rule of Christian faith and 
conduct. It came into existence in rec- 
ognition of the fact that the present 
death-grapple between faith and disbelief 


centres in the Bible and involves the 
question of Bible or no Bible. That de- 
termines its object, and its aim and 
method. 

In the view of the League, and justify- 
ing its right to exist, two absolutely con- 
tradictory statements of the nature, val- 
ue, and claims of the Bible are struggling 
for the supremacy. 

There is the old view, that the Bible is 
a divine production, the inspired record 
of God’s revelation of the unfolding of 
His purpose for the redemption of lost 
man. It reveals the only and exclusive 
religion from God. 

According to this view, it is the Word 
of God, carrying with it the authority of 
God; and so, on the evidences it pre- 
sents for the justification of its claims, is 
to be reverently received and loyally 
submitted to by man as the only way of 
salvation and the final and infallible rule 
of faith and practice. 

The supreme question with which to 
approach it is always “What has God 
said?” 

There is also a new view, that the 
Bible is simply a human production, a 
natural evolution from the experiences of 
the Hebrew race. Its religion is merely 
one of the many ethnic religions, with in- 
numerable and obvious defects and con- 
tradictions, and entirely without divine 
inspiration (except of the kind that 
Homer and Shakespeare enjoyed), and 
with no special right to claim divine au- 
thority over human reason, conscience 
and life. The Book is merely the litera- 
ture of the Hebrew people—or selec- 
tions from that literature—and is to be 
treated precisely like any other national 
literature. 

In harmony with this view, that the 
Bible is a natural evolution and not a 
divine revelation and movement, in the 
study of the Book, a new theory of the 
universe has been introduced. Nature 
and theenatural have been substituted for 
God and the supernatural; and Evolution 
put in the place of creation, providence 
and grace. 

To meet the exigencies of this hypo- 
thesis a new method of treatment has 
been invented and pushed to the front. 
The study of the Biblé as the completed 


and authoritative revelation of God, to 
find out what God has said in it, has 
beer displaced by an unjustifiable liter- 
ary and critical method, that assumes 
that the Bible is mere literature, orig- 
inating, like the literatures of Babylon 
and Greece and Rome, in legend and 
myth, and being a primitive record of 
man’s early condition of savagery and 
idolatry. Upon this assumed crazy-quilt 
material, made up of shreds and patches 
of every conceivable origin and author- 
ship, so-called scholars have set them- 
selves, by this literary and critical 
method, to the task of taking apart the 
bits and scraps, throwing away what- 
ever does not suit their critical fancies 
and vagaries, and patching the tattered 
remnants into the thousand and one new 
crazy-quilts of the critics. 

In this work they have been given free 
scope, while Christian people have been 
asked, in the interest of Christian peace 
and harmony, to wait meekly for the 
wonderful results to be reached,—being 
exhorted in the meantime to avoid any 
wicked manifestations of controversial 
perversity. And they have waited, and 
at last we have the results of this free- 
hand method, and can judge of their 
value. 


| 
| 
| 
1! 


The historical and critical results of 


the new view and method have been em- 
bodied for us in new commentaries, in 
the “Encyclopedia Biblica” in the Poly- 
chrome Bible, and latest of all in the 
“Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew 
History, from the Creation to the Es- 
tablishment of the Hebrew Kingdom,” 
just published as the first instalment of 
the “Students’ Old Testament” (the title 
should have added to it: “With the Old 
Testament Left Out’’)—all these together 
giving a partial revelation of their irra- 
tional and monstrous quality. 

In the application of the new method 
to the Old Testament, one finds astound- 
ing results. 

On a single page in the Polychrome 
Bible are “nineteen different little por- 
tions pieced together to make one small 
fragment of history, all of which snippets 
the critic professes to be able to separate 
and assign to different writers who had 
a hand in the business,”—and all this in 





spite of the fact that there is not a 
whisper in all history or even in tra- 
dition of the existence of any such 
writers or of any such work done by 
them! 

In the “Encyclopedia Biblica,” Pro- 
fessor Cheyne finds, in Volume III., that 
about one-half—42 out of 95—of the 
proper names are derivatives from Jerah- 
meel, including among them Laadah, 
and Laban, and Ladan, and Maacah and 
Machpelah, and all the long list. He 
finds, too, that the names in the earlier 
volumes—of Aram, Amram, Abram, De- 
borah, Ham, Jerubbaal, Balaam, Amelek, 
Ammcn, and many more—are all corrup- 
tions of the same Jerahmeel,—so that 
this becomes the one dominant name in 
the Old Testament. And yet Jerahmeel 
cccurs only once in the Old Testament, 
and Jerahmeelites but once! 

In their application to the Gospels, in 
the same work, Professor Schmiedel 
finds that there are only seven facts left 
that can be at all depended upon as his- 
torical, and every one of these is abso- 
lutely insignificant, so far as Christian 
truth is concerned. 

And now we are having put in at- 
tractive form, pushed upon the public by 
great publishers and in the name of 
great universities, a series of Textbooks 
for Schools and Colleges and Sunday 
Schools, to give these views the largest 
possible vogue, and to place them where 
they shall do the utmost possible in un- 
dermining the old faith in the Bible as 
the Word of God! 

Here, as a sample, is the reconstruc- 
tion sent out in the “Messages of the 
Lawgivers’—tor the enlightenment of 
the Schools and Colleges—stating what 
is left of the Old Testament down to the 
time of King Josiah: Moses up in the 
cloudland, a possibility, perhaps, and 
somewhere—and then reaching down for 
an indefinite period, precedents, customs, 
traditions,—only a few uncertain frag- 
ments being left before the time of Jo- 
siah, when the priests invented a patch 
of what is now Deuteronomy, and by a 
pious fraud palmed it off on the pious 
Josiah and the ignorant people as the 
Law of Jehovah! The Old Testament, 
‘as we have it, is represented as having 


been produced centuries later, just before 
the coming of Christ! 

In this process of criticism they have 
wrought havoc with the doctrines as well 
as facts of the Bible. They have dis- 
credited or discarded every essential 
truth of the Scriptures,—revelation, in- 
spiration, redemption, atonement, regen- 
eration; the virgin birth and the deity 
and the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and 
all the basal doctrines and motives in- 
volved in missions and the world’s evan-- 
gelization. 

It is this condition of things—some of 
the astounding facts concerning which 
you will hear in the course of this Con- 
vention from some of the’ ablest men in 
this country,—it is this condition of 
things that The American Bible League 
desires to remedy. These shreds of the 
Bible are manifestly no Bible at all that 
reasonable men can believe or on which 
a soul can rely for salvation. 

Believing this to be one of the most 
serious crises in the history of the Chris- 
tian faith, the League has taken up its 
task, under the guidance of the Spirit 
of God as we profoundly believe, with 
a two-fold object and aim, one defensive 
and aggressive and the other educational 
and constructive. 

I. It takes its stand for the Bible, and 
for the old view, so far as it is true, and 
yet with open vision for any new light 
that may come from any source whatso- 
ever; and it challenges these claims of 
the radical criticism, the baselessness of 
which it proposes to show. 

Ist. We challenge the fundamental as- 
sumption of the radical critics, that the 
Bible is to be treated precisely like any 
other book of literature, and we do it 
ior a twofold reason: 

(1) The Bible is not primarily or 
chiefly literature, although it has in it 
confessedly some of the literary master- 
pieces of the ages. It is unspeakably 
more than literature; it is God’s Way 
of Life. 

(2) It is infinitely unlike any other lit- 
erature, and therefore scientific treat- 
ment requires that this fact of difference 
be taken into account as the supreme 
fact. It stands out as the only regenerat- 
ing and transforming power among men; 


the source (Prof. Huxley, the Nestor of 
the agnostics being witness) of all that 
is highest and best in human civiliza- 
tions, and especially in English and 
American civilizations; and (according to 
the same witness) the only sure hope for 
even the moral well-being of mankind 
for the future. 

The logical principle involved in fa- 
vor of the Bible is, that the presumption 
is always in favor of existing institutions 
—that they are here because they have a 
reason for being here,—and the weight 
of this presumption in the case of the 
Bible is inconceivably great. It has the 
right of way until its claims are dis- 
credited by valid and irresistible proofs 
to the contrary. 

2d. We challenge the far-reaching eoutts 
of the new criticism, and for the best of 
reasons, which we are ready to present. 

In our opposition we do not object to 
it because it is criticism. If, as Matthew 
Arnold suggests, the object of criticism 
is to bring one to understand and “see 
a literary production as it is in itself,” 
that is the very thing we favor every- 
where and always. We have nothing to 
say against it even as Higher Criticism, 
which aims to reach a correct under- 
standing of the origin and literary quali- 
ties of the literature of the Bible. This 
has been one of the choicest instruments 
of the best scholarship of the Christian 
Church in all ages. What we challenge 
is the application to the Scriptures of 
false critical principles, the perverted ap- 
plication of correct principles, and the 
substitution of philological and linguistic 
crochets and vagaries, that have no claim 
to be called literary, for the study of the 
grand elements of artistic construction 
which are the soul of literature, and 
which have won the acknowledgment 
from all competent critics that these 
Books of the-Bible are among the liter- 
ary masterpieces of all time. We are so 
foolish, if you choose to call it that, as 
to prefer the grand constructions of 
Moses and the Prophets, of Matthew and 
Luke and John and Paul, to the petty 
crazy-quilt reconstructions of Professor 
Go-as-you-please, critic and iconoclast, 
whether he hail from Germany or Britain 
or Scotland or America. 


’ 


We do not challenge the new views be- 
cause they are scientific, but because they 
are unscientific.—ignoring all the basal 
facts in their so-called inductions. There 
is not a shred of science in it all, process 
and product included. We affirm, and in 
the course of our future work expect to 
show that the critical view is made up 
largely of reckless assertions and base- 
less conclusions in about equal propor- 
tions. 

Nor do we object to the results 
reached and propounded because they 
are new. They are not new. One can 
parallel the statements of every one of 
the present-day boasted new principles 
from the works of Thomas Paine and 
his co-laborers. He can match every 
one of the new positions from the pre- 
decessors of Paine, all the way back to 
Porphyry, and to the objections thrust 
at our Lord Himself by the lawyers and 
scribes and Pharisees; and he can trace 
the spirit of them all back to that in- 
sidious word whispered to Mother Eve 
by the tempter: “Yea, hath God said?” 

We oppose the new exploitation of 
radical results, primarily and principally, 
however, because they are not true; 
while the Bible, according to the old in- 
terpretation of it, is true, and eternal 
truth. History, science, archeology, true 
literary criticism, ripe Christian experi- 
ence, all combine to shatter the claims of 
the critics, and to confirm the claims of 
the Bible. 

Here is a crucial test. It is a fact that 
this old Book meets fairly and settles 
rightly the great and unchanging prac- 
tical problems of existence that have 
pressed upon every human soul from 
Adam down,—the only practical ques- 
tions that can have any permanent in- 
terest for an immortal soul. Nature sug- 
gests and man carries in his bosom at 
least five of these great religious prob- 
lems, from which we cannot escape: 
Whence came I? On whom can I de- 
pend? Whence the evil which I find 
within and around me? Is there any way 
to escape? May I hope for such escape 
and a future life? Now this Bible gives 
the only clear, certain and reasonable 
answer to these ever-living questions, in 
its doctrines of Creation, Previdence, the 


Fall into sin, the Incarnation, and the 
Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. 
It deals, not with the passing show of 
this world, but with these problems that 
grow out of the bottom facts of man 
and of history, and it always commends 
itself as giving the supreme and eternal 
truth on all these vital points, all center- 
ing in the incarnate, living, dying, risen, 
reigning Christ. And it confirms its 
claims by many and infallible proofs. 
Outside of it there is not even one faint 
whisper of hope for man in all the uni- 
verse, so that we are shut up to it as 
God’s answer to these questions that will 
not down. The Bible answers demon- 
strate their right of way by matching 
the eternal realities and needs. 

Do we object to these critical results 
because they are destructive? Yes. 
Only a fool thinks of living regardless of 
consequences. The fact that they are de- 
_ structive—to conscience, conduct, char- 
acter, the soul—demonstrates that they 
are not of God, and not in harmony with 
Him, for in God’s world on God’s side 
is the only safe place, and in obeying him 
the only salvation. 

But all this is merely negative and 
defensive; it is not to be the chief thing. 
The positive and constructive side is to 
be presented at a later session. Here I 
need only suggest it in outline, deferring 
the unfolding of it till that occasion. 


President Hall: Among the princes of 
the world of Christian education, stands 
one today, as he has stood for many 
years, a staunch champion for that faith 
that was the faith of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, as it is now the faith taught by 
The American Bible League, and by all 


II. The League proposes, as its main 
business, to help the people to see the 
Bible as it is, and to find out what is 
in it. 

Its purpose is to organize the friends 
of the Bible in order to give men a larger 
and better view of it as the Word of 
God and the Way of Life,—a view that 
shall be worthy to replace all this misdi- 
rected scholarship and learning, and by 
its self-evident power make clear as sun- 
light the worthlessness of all these 
boasted conclusions and results that run 
counter to the teachings of Scripture. 

In carrying out this purpose— 

ist. It will stand for the unity of the 
Bible, and will seek to find in the Book 
a divine plan that shall commend it to 
all reasonable minds. 

2d. It proposes to advocate a method 
of Bible Study and instruction that shall 
be really scientific, and so be natural, 
constructive and cumulative; and that 
shall help Christians to master for them- 
selves what is in the Bible. 

3d. It proposes to organize the friends 
of the Bible, and push a propaganda for 
the rational study and mastery of the 
Bible itself, with the purpose if may be 
of reaching the ends of the earth with its 
message of life. 

This educational and constructive work 
will be set forth at a later stage of this 
Convention. 


those who stand upon the platform upon 
which we stand. I have the pleasure of 
introducing to you Rev. Dr. Francis L. 
Patton, President of Princeton Theolog- 
ical Seminary, who will now address us 
on the principal topic of the evening, 
“The Present Assault on the Bible.” 


first General Topic 


“THE PRESENT ASSAULT ON THE BIBLE” 
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT PATTON 


“The Issue Between Supernaturalism and Atheism’”’ 


My Christian friends, I am here to- 
night because I am glad to show my 
sympathy with the object of this meet- 
ing, and because I am in the heartiest 
accord with the aims and purposes, and, 
so far as I understand them, with the 
methods of this Bible League. I hope 
that this will appear in the remarks that 
I shall make, and, yet, I want to warn 
you in advance, that what I say may bet- 
ter be called a talk than an address, cer- 
tainly better be called a talk than a lec- 
ture. I am going to speak very freely 
and very unconventionally on this ques- 
tion; and I want to say a few things by 
way of preliminary remarks. 

Of course, there is a certain polemic 
setting to this Conference, and in a met- 
aphorical sort of way we are speaking as 
though we were engaged in a great war- 
fare; so we are; and as though a great 
assault were being made with malice 
aforethought upon the integrity of our 
faith, Now, I wish before I proceed 
any further to acquit any one involved 
in this controversy of any conscious de- 
sire to do wrong, or of any hostile atti- 
tude. I think the thing to do is to recog- 
nize that we are a set of intellectual be- 
ings, and that some of us have intellect- 
ual convictions, and that some other peo- 
ple differ with us in their intellectual 
conclusions in regard to this matter. My 
experience is, not that people wax hot, 
so much as that they are so cold-blooded. 
They have not interest enough to be 
controversial; there is no controversy. 
It is as though a man should meet you on 
the street and challenge your integrity, 
your veracity, your honor; and instead 
of resenting it, as you might, you should 
say to him, “Well, my friend, that is a 
matter of difference between us. You 
are in one psychological climate, and I 
am in another psychological climate. Let 
us get down to the facts and study this 
matter inductively, and see where we will 


10 


come out.” That seems to be the tem- 
per of this day. 

And, then, I want to make another re- 
mark still prefatory:—you can gather 
from the prefatory how long the address 
will be—that I have not any heart to find 
fault with a man who says he wants to 
criticise the Bible. Why not? Let him. 
If we have confidence in it, don’t we be- 
lieve it will come out all right? You 
can’t shut it up in a glass case. You can’t 
make an Index expurgatorius and tell 
men they must not read these bad books 
that criticise the Bible. If the Bible 
can’t stand in the daylight, there is no 
use of your keeping it in the dark. It has 
got to conform to the canons of criti- 
cism that we apply to other things. It 
has got to stand that test or go down. 
Don’t be afraid of it. Take hold of the 
butt-end of this question right now. 

I want to make another prefatory re- 
mark: I am not concerned here to-night 
about inspiration—I have a theory of in- 
spiration, and it might be interesting if 
there was time to consider it, but it is not 
pertinent to this subject—I have not any 
concern to-night with any theory of in- 
spiration. Christianity is not identified 
with the inspiration of the Scriptures. 
Don’t forget it now. The inspiration of 
the Scriptures is a doctrine taught in 
the Scriptures. The Divinity of Christ 
is a doctrine taught in the Scriptures. 
Do I need the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures to back up the Divinity of Christ? 
Well, then, don’t I need the inspiration 
of the Scriptures to back up the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures? I can not assume 
the inspiration of the Scriptures in order 
to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures. 
I tell you if your Christianity will stand 
without the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
it will stand a fortiori with it. Nobody 
is going to push me to the edge, so far as 
all that is concerned. I tell you I am 
still in a ship that is pretty well provided 


with compartments, longitudinal and 
transverse, and the bulkheads are shut all 
the time, every one of them. You can 
break a hole in one and fill it; she won’t 
sink. 

Now, I want to say one word more, and 
that is that in the management of this 
controversy, you have to depend on the 
specialists; you have to. They are the 
only ones that know anything about it. 
What do I know about it? What I 
mean is that, in the details of criticism, in 
the minute form which criticism assumes at 
the present time, Old Testament and 
New Testament, the questions are of 
such a character that you have to have 
the Old Testament man to deal with the 
Old Testament questions, and the New 
Testament man to deal with the New 
Testament questions; and if one tries to 
be both an Old Testament man and a 
New Testament man, he is very likely 
not to be very much of either. 

Now then, you have to meet minute 
special learning of one kind with minute 
special learning of the other kind. You 
will have some of that kind here. There 
will be conservative critics in this com- 
pany. I am not one of them, because I 
am not a critic; if I were, I would be 
conservative. But then, what we want 
meanwhile—you can let the critics fight 
this battle out, and you can have implicit 
faith in the outcome. We have got a 
good set of attorneys. We are not let- 
ting the case go by default by any 
means: and when it gets up to the Su- 
preme Court, we count on a decision in 
our favor, too. But, meanwhile, that is the 
point, meanwhile we do not want our 
ministerial brethren to lose heart and min- 
imize, and think the thing is all gone, stop 
preaching doctrines and fill their sermons 
with these pretty little amenities of so- 
ciology and sentimentality. What we want 
is that meanwhile our people shall not 
grow indifferent and think that this 
whole fight is a mere matter of placing 
the emphasis, a mere question of whe- 
ther you will have one doctrine more or 
less; it is not so. And if I do not do 
anything else tonight, I hope, at least, 
I shall do this—indeed I do not expect 
to do anything more; this is what I came 


II 


for—I do want to make it as clear as sun- 
light what this issue is all about; because 
I tell you, it is not a question as to 
whether this doctrine is true or that doc- 
trine is true, whether this man wrote 
that book or that man wrote the other; 
it is a question as to the very life of the 
Christian religion in any sense that the 
Christian religion can have any signifi- 
cance for you or me. 

Now, then, what do we mean by the 
Christian religion? For, after all, it is 
not a question of higher Criticism or 
lower Criticism. The issue is joined now 
on the question as to what is Christian- 
ity. 

Christianity a Piece of Supernatural In- 
formation. 


Now, one answer to that question is 
this:—I think it is the answer we have 
all been accustomed to—It is a piece of 
supernatural information with respect to 
the way of salvation from the perils of 
eternal death, through the blood-shed- 
ding of Jesus Christ. That is what it 
is. That is the gospel you and I were 
brought up on. That is the gospel that 
is being preached in this pulpit, thank 
God, every Sunday by my friend, Dr. 
Burrell. 

Now, they are making a great deal 
these days of the distinction between the 
judgments of fact and judgments of 
value. I tell you that if Christianity is 
what we were brought up to think it to 
be, it begins with the judgment of fact. 
Whether the play of Hamlet is a great 
production, is a judgment of value. Whe- 
ther Shakespeare wrote it or Bacon, is a 
judgment of fact. The question of 
Christianity as we understand it, is a 
question of fact. Has any information 
been lodged anywhere in regard to the 
way of salvation? That is the issue. 
Now, if it has been lodged anywhere, it 
is a matter of the greatest moment for 
you and for me where we are to look for 
it. If you say you are looking for it in 
the Church, even the Church—whether 
she be only a trustee; and still more, if 
she pretend to speak in the present tense 
—needs the Scriptures to back her up; 
and the question as to whether she has 


corrupted the inheritance, or is teaching 
what she was told to teach, or has in her 
possession the same old deposit of faith, 
is a question to be tested by comparison 
with the inspired Word. So that even 
when you put the seat of authority in the 
Church, you have got to get back to the 
Scriptures to support the Church. There- 
fore, it is not strange that, believing that 
God has given us a piece of information, 
and has lodged it in the written Word, 
we should be intensely interested in the 
question what that Word has to say. 
Why, my friends, if we believe it—now, 
it is a great question as to whether we 
do or not—but, if we believe that the 
Almighty has put into the Scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments His an- 
swer to this question how you and I can 
be delivered from eternal peril, we are 
simply idiotic if we are not interested in 
what that Word has to say. But that is 
not all. In days gone by, in the days 
within the recollection of some of us 
who are over fifty years of age, it was an 
understood thing that every question in 
theology—whether it was the Divinity of 
Christ, or the Future State, or Justifica- 
tion by Faith, or what not—every ques- 
tion was settled on exegetical grounds, 
and by an appeal to a text of Scripture. 
We all know that—now, don’t we? Now, 
why has exegesis gone by the board? 
Because a change has come over the 
world to a very large extent in this mat- 
ter, and men, if they will really be hon- 
est with themselves and scrutinize their 
own thinking, will realize that it is not 
always a question with them what the 
Word has to say, but whether they are 
bound by it, even when they know what 
it says. 

Now, what has produced this change? 
Two things, two things. In the first 
place, men have come by a new phil- 
osophy of religion, holding which they 
are obliged to put a new meaning on the 
Bible, and so stand in a new attitude 
toward it. In the second place, men 
have come to the literary criticism of the 
Bible, and as the outcome of that liter- 
ary criticism they have been forced to 
find that they can not hold the old view 
of Christianity, and are, therefore, adopt- 


I2 


ing a new philosophy of religion. Now, 
do you not see a new philosophy of re- 
ligion, forcing some men to a new view 
of the Bible, and a new view of the Bible 
forcing other men to a new philosophy 
of religion? Two extremes meet at this 
juncture and in this crisis. 


Christianity a Moment in a Great Pro- 
cess of Evolution. 


Now, then, under those circumstances, 
what follows? This follows: that when 
you ask a great many men at the pres- 
ent time what they mean by Christianity, 
they will not give that old answer. They 
will tell you, if they formulate an an- 
swer at all, that Christianity is a mo- 
ment, a stage in a great cosmic process, 
a” great movement of evolution with 
which you and I have as little to do as 
we do with the precession of the equi- 
noxes. So there has been this great 
growth, through infinitesimal grada- 
tions, and through all the phases of life 
until the period of religion dawns, and 
through all the phases of religion until 
the very climax of religious experience — 
has been reached in the Christian relig- 
ion and in the Scriptures. And the 
Scriptures are simply historical; they are 
the records of the religious experience 
of the times in which they were written, 
and of the men particularly who had part 
in writing them. They are, therefore, 
valuable as giving us an account of the 
religious experiences of those times. 
Now what? What follows? Why, you 
must remember that under these circum- 
stances men will say they concede the 
consummate beauty of the Christian re- 
ligion. It is the bright and consummate 
flower of this tree of Religion. They 
concede the superior advantages of the 
Scriptures over all other sacred books; 
and yet, conceding these superior advan- 
tages, they recognize that they may con- 
tain some very important truths in con- 
nection with a great deal of error. The 
myth and the legend have not been elim- 
inated, and the allegorical and miracu- 
lous have been mixed up with what is 
historical and true; but in the light of the 
process of evolution, it is easy for them 
to realize that all miracles must be elim- 


inated, and, therefore, in the light of that 
foregone conclusion, there was no Pri- 
meval Innocence, and there was no Fall, 
and there could be no Redemption, and 
there can be no Incarnation, and one by 
one the doctrines drop away—absolutely 
every one goes, except as you may 
choose to look upon the Incarnation as a 
beautiful symbol of the longing that the 
finite mind has for the Divine; except as 
you may look upon the Atonement as a 
beautiful symbol of the idea that a man 
ought to be self-sacrificing and live for 
his neighbor, and not consider his own 
advantage; except as you may take each 
one of these doctrines as suggesting 
some beautiful idea. 

Now, that is your Christianity. Do 
you care much about it? Is there any- 
thing for the poor man, anything for the 
troubled heart, anything for the sin-sick 
soul? Do you think it is worth while to 
send missionaries abroad to preach that? 
Why, it is metaphysics, it is a philos- 
ophy; that is all there is of it. 


Christianity the Self-Revelation of God 
in Jesus. 

Why, now, my friends,you say that He- 
gelianism is dead. But Caird is not dead; 
and you will find plenty of men who will 
interpret the Christian religion for you in 
the terms of philosophy. But still men 
do say that this purely metaphysical re- 
ligion won’t do, that the heart craves 
something that this does not satisfy, and 
the pendulum when it had gone just as 
far as it could go that way, must swing 
back. And now it has gone as far as it 
could that way; and men do say, “Let 
us get rid of this metaphysics. Let us 
get back to the historical Christ. Let us 
get back to Jesus.” So, they get back, 
they get back. We are not Hegelian 
any more. We have left that now. We 
are with Harnack and the Ritschlians 
now. But then, what have you got? You 
have given up Paul and all his meta- 
physics, and his Jewish ways of looking 
at things, and you have gone back to the 
heart of the gospel, to Jesus. Very well. 
Now, what have you got? 

You say, “You must not be metaphysi- 
cal.” Who was Jesus? Christianity, a 


13 


piece of supernatural information? one 
answer. Christianity, a moment in a 
great process of evolution—that is the 
second answer. Christianity, the self- 
revelation of God in Jesus—that is the 
third answer. So, Jesus is the great re- 
vealer to us of God. And men who write 
about it write very piously, so as to de- 
ceive the very elect. And they tell you 
you must not be metaphysical. Why 
not? Then, if you can not be meta- 
physical, Who was Jesus? Did He rise 
from the dead? Yesorno. Now, I want 
a categorical answer, because if He 
stayed dead, that is one view; if He did 
not stay dead, He rose from the dead, 
and is declared to be the Son of God 
with power by the Resurrection from the 
Dead. 

Did He live in a pre-existent state be- 
fore he was born of Mary? Well, that 
is a metaphysical question, too, and we 
must not have any metaphysics in our 
theology. Was He “very God of very 
God?” Was He “God manifest in the 
flesh?” This is a hard question; they do 
not care to have this question put to 
them. But I want a categorical answer. 
I tell you if He was not God, you have 
no right to worship Him as such; and if 
He was God, you dare not deny Him. 
Which? 

Now, they talk sentimentally to me. 
Now, they begin to tell me about His 
ethics. They begin to say. “We don’t 
want metaphysics or dogma; we want the 
Sermon on the Mount; we want the mor- 
alities of the gospel.” Do you? Very 
well. I will accommodate you. Well, 
come right up now. We will not discuss 
the doctrines. We will discuss just the 
morals. Our Lord says something with 
respect to divorce and the marriage state. 
What right had He to say what He did? 
Do you authenticate His teachings by 
His authority, or do you authenticate 
His authority by His teachings? De 
you value Him on account of His teach- 
ing, or do you value His teaching on 
account of Him? That is the question. 
Did He have any right to speak? He 
taught them as one having authority, and 
not as the Scribes. Did He have the au- 
thority? I tell you that if He were a 


mere man, if He were anything short of 
God, I have very serious doubts as to 
whether the fact that He taught should 
bind my conscience. 

Well, now, supposing He is not God; 
supposing He is not divine; supposing 
there is nothing supernatural; supposing 
Nicodemus was all wrong (and I think 
Nicodemus is worth a whole congrega- 
tion of modern apologetes), when he 
says: “We know Thou art a teacher come 
from God, for no man can do these mira- 
cles that Thou doest, except God be 
with him.” Now, I say if you give up 
the doctrines and give up the metaphys- 
ics, and come down to simply the one 
historical Jesus of Nazareth, I wish to 
know what authority He had that should 
bind my conscience; and, then, why 
should I have these strict views of 
monogamy? Is there any intuition on 
that subject that anybody carries about 
with him? Have you got one? Are you 
dead sure, in the same way that you are 
that two and two are four and that every 
event must have a cause, that monogamy 
is the only rule? King David did not 
think so, and King Solomon did not 
think so; there are plenty of people all 
over this world that do not think so; so, 
if we are going to test an ethical ques- 
tion by the standard of intuition, as 
something that is self-evident and uni- 
versal, you will find it hard to support 
this teaching as a part of obligatory mor- 
ality. 

Is it not true, therefore, that the ques- 
tion as to who Jesus was is a far bigger 
question than the question as to what 
Jesus said? Because the question as to 
the value of what He said depends upon 
the prior question of what right He had 
to say it. Oh, well, we are not out of 
the religion of authority yet, because we 
still have Jesus. He had authority. What 
authority? If you rob Him of His im- 
perial purple, and deny Him His right to 
be Lord of lords, still this will not sat- 
isfy everybody, and they say, “You are 
still in the religion of authority, you are 
tying your Christianity to a book or toa 
man, to a person, to something external; 
and we will never get at the bottom of 
Christianity until we deliver it altogether 


14 


from the trammels of external authority 
and find its divine authority inside.” Very 
well, let us try it. 


Christianity the Religion of the Spirit. 


Christianity, in the fourth place, is the 
religion of the spirit. We have left Har- 
nack and the Ritschlians. We are with 
Sabatier, now. 

Now, what does he say? Sabatier 
says: “Christianity proves itself to the in- 
dividual conscience by the witness of the 
Spirit.” Now, I want to make a remark 
right there. He has written his book 
entitled “The Religions of Authority and 
The Religion of the Spirit,” as much as 
to say that when he is dealing with the 
Spirit, he is not dealing with an author- 
ity. He is. Take up his particular be- 
liefs—and there are not many left—but 
what few there are left, he is trying to 
back up by an appeal to the Spirit. “Pa- 
ternal Theism,” that is, the outcome of 
Christianity is that God is love, and if 
you are good, He will be good to you; 
and he supports that by the authority of 
the Spirit. 

It is not a question of authority or no 
authority; but in his case it is an author- 
ity that you can not put your finger on. 
It is an authority that you can not lo- 
cate. It is an authority that you can not 
define. How do you know the witness 
of the Spirit? How do you know? I 
would like to ask him. The mystic is 
just as subjectivistic as the Hegelian, 
only it is an emotional subjectivism. Do 
you think that subjectivism is the less 
subjectivism because it is touched with 
emotion? 

And now you are in that state, and you 
say that that state of heightened feeling 
is the witness of the Spirit. How do you 
know? Where did you ever learn any- 
thing about any Spirit, much less about 
any witness of any Spirit? Did you not 
learn that out of Paul? Did you not get 
that out of the New Testament? What 
right have you got to be going around 
talking about the witness of the Spirit 
which you got out of Paul, after you have 
discarded Paul? How do you know what 
is the witness of the Spirit? You do not 
know. 


a i i 


: 
: 


Sabatier tells us we are now in the 
region of psychology and history. In- 
deed we are; and I tell you that when 
the psychologist gets hold of this relig- 
ious state, and begins to subject it to 
the analysis that he is accustomed to, he 
will not know very much about the wit- 
ness of the Spirit. He will probably tell 
us that that state of mind that we are in 
is abnormal, perhaps pathological, and 
that what we need is the treatment of 
the physician. You can not identify— 
that is your trouble—the witness of the 
Spirit. In the region of the psychologi- 
cal and historical? Yes. And there we 
are brought face to face with the fine 
distinction that they make so much of, 
judgments of fact and judgments of 
value. And they say to us, We may bea 
little mystical, or even in doubt; or we 
may go so far as to discard the judg- 
ments of fact altogether, so we keep the 
judgments of value. Why, “The Good 
Samaritan” is a fine story no matter 
who told it. “The Prodigal Son” is a 
fine story, no matter who told it. The 

~ sentiment of self-sacrifice is a great idea, 
no matter whether there is any real 
atonement or not. The sentiment of 
longing after communion with God is a 
great idea, no matter whether there be 
any real regeneration, or whether there 
be any Incarnation or not. So, they say 
the historical statement is a mere shell; 
it is the idea that counts. Is that all? 
Is that what Christianity means too? 
And, so, I have read men, who, when 
they had discarded the supernatural ele- 
ment of the Old Testament, tell me 


that the Old Testament furnishes 
many interesting lessons. Why you 
can preach about Joseph, if there 


never was any Joseph. You can preach 
about Abraham, if there never was any 
Abraham. Why, so you can, and so 
you could preach out of A’sop’s Fables 
splendid sermons, if that is what you 
want, if you can discard the judgments 
of fact, and just keep the judgments of 
value. Bless my soul! whoever wanted 
such a Christianity as that? Why, my 
friends, need we make a fuss about the 
Christian religion, if that is the truth 
about the Christian religion? But the 


T5 


essence of Christianity is that these judg- 
ments of value become judgments of 
value because they are anchored in judg- 
ments of fact; it is the fact that gives 
them value. 

Now, get rid of the doctrine of the wit- 
ness of the Spirit, because that is a mere 
piece of emotionalism. Where are you 
now? You have given up Christ, you have 
given up the Spirit, you have got the eth- 
ics of the New Testament, and you are 
going to hold on to that. Where are you? 
You are down in moral philosophy. You 
have swamped your Christianity. You 
are just where Plato was, and Aristotle 
was, and Cicero was; and you have no 
more ethical guidance than they had. You 
have no more reason for believing in the 
distinctions of right and wrong than they 
had; excepting as Christianity has given 
us some new ideas in regard to our re- 
lations to one another. But, even then, 
the question may be raised whether 
Christianity was quite right. It may well 
be a question whether we have not gone 
too far in the practice of the passive 
virtues, whether it has not made us a 
little too soft, whether Christianity car- 
ried to an extreme would not make a 
very chicken-hearted set of people, and 
result in the production of the wrong 
kind of patriotism. That is what Nietsche 
said, and if Nietsche is right, we should 
glorify the Soldier and let the Saint take 
a back seat. You would say, as to whe- 
ther you should rule your own spirit or 
not, that is something I do not know, 
and can not profess to care; but you 
must take the city at all cost! Something 
of that kind would be said. Now, isn’t 
there something to be said for Nietsche? 
If Christianity is simply a piece of mor- 
al philosophy, and our value judgments 
are merely ethical sentiments, which in 
these days of keen analysis have under- 
gone a great deal of scrutiny; if you go 
around among the moral philosophers— 
those of you who know what the moral 
philosophy is at the present day, the 
Utilitarians, Idealists, the School of 
Green and the School of Spencer—and 
ask them to be kind enough to give you 
the loan for a night of a list of virtues 
that you can tie to, and feel bound by, 


and that will command your conscience, 
and that will stand the test of reason, 
satisfy your intellect;—I would like you 
to find the man that will do it. I know 
what I am talking about. You can not 
find him. 

And, so, your Christianity drops down 
into moral philosophy. And your mor- 
ality goes to pieces, except as morality 
is an instinct, except as virtue happens 
to be an appetite. 

Ah, my friends, that is Christianity af- 
ter you have discarded the Bible; in the 


President Hall: We have listened, with 
intense interest, to the address of Dr. 
Patton. We are now privileged to listen 
for a few minutes to an address from 
Rev. Theodore E. Schmauk, D.D., of 


hands of the modern disciples of the 
Destructive Criticism! I tell you that, 
in the interests of morality, in the inter- 
ests of the home, in the interests of 
trade, in the interests of civil liberty, in 
the interests of all that is best in this 
life, and all that is bright with hope in 
respect to the life to come; we must 
keep our old fashioned Christianity; we 
must rehabilitate Paul; we must get 
back, and back, and back, and back to 
Atoning Blood, or else we shall go on to 
atheism and despair. 


Lebanon, Pa., President of the Lutheran 
General Council and Editor of the Lu- 
theran “Church Review.” Dr. Schmauk 
will address you on another phase of 
the general subject. 


ADDRESS OF DR. SCHMAUK 
““Some Counts Against the Rationalistic Criticism ”’ 


Permit me to draw your attention to a 
distinction between a judgment of fact 
and a judgment of value. It is a judg- 
ment of fact that Dr. Patton spoke an 
hour and five minutes; it is a judgment of 
value that we might have listened another 
hour and five minutes without becoming 
tired. 

My address tonight must be brief. The 
present assault on the Bible must be met, 
and that in a scientific way. In this work 
we need not less science but more. It 
would be a great mistake for us to ques- 
tion the motives of the critics, or to use 
against them the methods that the late 
Robert G, Ingersoll used against the Bi- 
ble. By means of these one can give 
some hard knocks at what are popularly 
supposed to be weak spots in the Scrip- 
tures; but this method of attack, whether 
used for or against the Bible, is usually 
futile, and reminds one very much of the 
attacks and criticisms made by some 
Orientals upon our Occidental civili- 
zation. Take some vigorous China- 
man or some wily Brahmin, and the 
blows that he can deliver against our 
Nineteenth Century Western civilization 
will stun us for the moment; but after all, 
they do not touch the vital region. In 


16 


spite of all the attacks made by Orientals 
upon the seamy side of American and 
European civilization, the superiority of 
the latter is not seriously questioned by 
any of us. 

The subject we are considering must 
be dealt with rationally and scientifically. 
It is from this point of view that we are 
to offer what we have to say. 

I. The Radical Criticism of the Day 
proceeds upon a hypothesis of Material- 
istic Evolution that is untenable. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer, by the presenta- 
tion of his evolutionary views, has done 
much to change the whole trend of mod- 
ern philosophy, as popularly accepted. 
Perhaps the conclusions from his views 
have been more harmful in Biblical Crit- 
icism than anywhere else. Taking a ma- 
terialistic view of the world, and assum- 
ing that man possesses in himself poten- 
cies that make for righteousness and nec- 
essarily develop into perfection, this phil- 
osophy takes away the need of a Bible, 
and is often content to move on its way 
simply ignoring the Scripture and its 
teachings as a back number, and devel- 
oping in its stead theories of life and 
character and conduct that can only be 
indirectly connected with its pages. In 


fact, Mr. Spencer’s fatal weakness is that 
he attempts to explain completely the 
laws of higher development in terms of 
| the lower. He has applied a mere bio- 
logical principle as an adequate explana- 
tion of the phenomena of sociology, 
| psychology, ethics, pedagogy and relig- 
ion. In plain words, he has completely 
eliminated the moral and spiritual from 
the universe. What remains is not mind 
or soul, but tissue. That is the biological 
view by which he has set the laws of 
matter to originate and develop and con- 
trol spirit. It need only be said that, in- 
genious as his deductions are, they fall 
short of the mark, by ignoring or leay- 
ing unexplained the main facts of the 
universe and human history, and that 
they will therefore be unable to stand 
the future test on account of this fatal 
error. All that is best in humanity is in 
eternal protest against the principles in- 
volved in the system of Spencer. And so 
| is all that is best in the Bible. 

II. The Radical Criticism proceeds 
| upon the hypothesis of the late origin of 
j the Old Testament Books, in its later 
| forms upon their Post-Exilic Origin. 

| I wish to draw your attention to this 

simply to prepare the way for giving a 
comprehensive view of what may be said 
against the whole theory of the negative 
criticism. 

1. All the positive evidence of the Old 
| Testament itself is against that hypo- 
thesis. 

_ 2. All the positive evidence of the New 
'Testament is against that hypothesis. 

3. The evidence of ancient Jewish and 
| Christian history is against that hypo- 
thesis. 

_ 4. The evidence of the later historical 
books of the Old Testament does not 
warrant that hypothesis. 

5. The negative theory makes all Is- 
rael’s literature spring from the period 
of a nation’s decline and fall, which is as 
|much as to say that we have harvests in 
winter time. 

6. The principal argument of the nega- 
| tive theory for the post-exilian author- 
ship is inconclusive. 

7. The ground on which it rests is not 
adequately supported by the facts. 


+ 
























17 


8. It explains other cognate facts in 
an unsatisfactory manner. 

9. It fails to fit Deuteronomy into the 
time of Josiah and Leviticus into the 
time of Ezra. 

10. It fails to explain the presence of 
many regulations that are meaningless on 
its own hypothesis. 

11. It fails to present a plausible view 
of the personality of Moses. 

12. It contradicts itself in explaining 
the term “Mosaic.” 

13. It fails to explain the rise of the 
Prophets. 

14. It forces the words of the Proph- 
ets. 

15. It assumes that the Mosaic Law 
was smuggled in twice. 

16. It assumes a pious fraud on the 
part of the Old Testament writers. 

17. The negative theory is essentially 
an artificial one. 

18. It is essentially and wholly rooted 
in a desire to deny the supernatural. 

19. The conclusions of the negative 
theory affect the authority of our Lord’s 
teaching. 

20. The negative theory throws over- 
board all external and traditional evi- 
dence. 

21. The reasoning of the negative criti- 
cism is not freed from the weakness of 
its own mental type. 

22. The whole theory is in all its as- 
sumptions, with one exception, depend- 
ent entirely upon internal evidence. 

23. The negative theory is obliged to 
introduce a large number of reckless in- 
ternal assumptions, redactions and inter- 
polations. It fails to show why the re- 
dactors are not consistent ,and yet it re- 
jects Pentateuchal legislation on the 
ground of inconsistencies. 

24. The negative theory forces pas- 
sages to make them agree with its hy- 
pothesis. 

25. The negative theory needlessly as- 
sumes that writings are non-authentit. 

26. It assumes that the same things 
will not happen twice, or be described 
over again. 

27. The negative theory assumes that 
a writing which can be decomposed into 
two narratives is a compilation. 


28. The negative theory assumes that 
similarities of style assure identity of 
authorship. 

29. The negative theory assumes that 
dissimilarity of style assures different au- 
thorship. 

30. The negative theory fails to note 
the real force of the argument from gen- 
eral internal consistency. 

31. The negative theory fails to note 
the drift of the argument from the sub- 
ject, style, thought, construction and 
words, 

32. The negative theory assumes and 
permits the existence of writings in the 
age of Augustus which history now dis- 
proves. 

33. The Post-Exilic theory is shown to 
be improbable, by the discoveries in 
Egyptology and Assyriology, and in view 
of the scenes, topography and characters 
of the Pentateuch. 

On every one of these points a chapter 
of facts can be adduced fatal to the mod- 
ern theory of the late or Post-Exilic ori- 
gin of the Old Testament. 

III, The Mediation Criticism, now in 
vogue, has no better foundation than the 
Radical Theory. 

Permit me to draw your attention to 
the great difference between the two sets 
of men who are advocating the critical 
theory of the Old Testament. In the 
one class are those who attempt to pre- 
serve their Bible as the Word of God, 
while holding fast their radical principles; 
and in the other are those who throw it 
away. It is this Mediation-Criticism that 
is far more dangerous than the Radical 
Criticism, and which has now control of 
most of the chairs in the theological insti- 
tutions in the United States; that pro- 
duces a majority of the books that are be- 
ing published on Biblical scientific sub- 
jects; and that is prepared to introduce 
its results and teachings into the Sunday- 
school and to inculcate its principles from 
various pedagogical foundations. 

The ‘extent of the mutilation of the 
Bible is something that one can scarcely 
realize. The theories of Wellhausen and 
Kuenen respecting the Pentateuch, and 
the more recent utterances of Frederick 
Delitzsch attempting to account for Gen- 


18 


> at 


esis and the other books of the Penta-_ 
teuch by a purely Babylonian origin, are 
so well known that they need not even 
be alluded to. The same may be said 
of the critical results reached by German 
writers and by such American critics as 
Professors Moore and Smith with re- 
gard to the period of the Judges and 
First and Second Samuel, while the 
Books of Kings and Chronicles are also 
being made a very centre of these his- 
torical attacks. The Psalms, it is well 
known, have been brought down to Post-_ 
Exilic times and to the period of the. 
Apocryphal books, by many German wri- j 
ters and such English critics as Canon 
Cheyne. All the Prophets, with a few 
exceptions, have been torn to shreds. 

In the New Testament, the book of the | 
Acts of the Apostles was reduced to 
fragments by Bauer in the beginning of 
the Nineteenth century, and after being” 
the battlefield of German critics from) 
that time to the present, has been recent- 
ly mutilated over again by one of the 
theological professors in this country. 
Matthew, Mark and Luke have been re- 
duced to a merely human expansion of 
the “logia,” and the gospel of John has 
been ruled out of court altogether. Even 
those Epistles which a generation ago 
were supposed to be unassailable have 
been reduced by later New Testament 
critics to a mere historical composite. 
Perhaps the most striking recent exam- 
ple is the attack of Professor Smith of 
Tulane University, in a late number of 
the “American Journal of Theology” and 
the “Hibbert Journal,” upon the genu- 
ineness and authenticity of Romans. In, 
conclusion, the Book of Revelation—al- 
ways a target—has been annihilated 
over and over again, and by schools of 
criticism whose methods are diametric- 
ally. opposed. 

In consequence of these destructive re- 
sults of purely negative criticism, we 
have hardly anything left in the Bible 
beyond some remnants of history and 
poetry, some codes of law and rules of 
conduct, some visions of the seer, some 
very lofty insights of the human soul; 
the whole of Revelation (as a specifically 
divine thing, not to be compared with 


other great works of the human intel- 
lect) and the whole of the teachings of 
the Atonement and Redemption have 
disappeared. 

IV. And now permit me to say in 
conclusion that all the forms of this Ra- 
tionalistic Criticism proceed upon certain 
unnatural and untenable postulates. 

In opposition to these may be pre- 
sented certain rational and correct prin- 
ples that should be grasped and applied: 

-1. We should not expect inspiration to 
be susceptible of mathematical proof, for 
two reasons: 

(1) It is not God’s way of conveying 
any organic or vital truth to us, to make 
it capable of mathematical proof. 

(2) Such proof would force a mechani- 
cal intellectual assent from all men, the 
very opposite of the voluntary spiritual 
assent God is aiming at. 

2. We should not expect inspired 
knowledge to be less difficult and compli- 
cated in its proof than ordinary knowl- 
edge, for the themes it handles are vast- 
er. Very little of even the best-estab- 
lished of ordinary knowledge is suscepti- 
ble of exact demonstration. 

3. We should not expect the problem 
of knowledge in inspiration to be less 
difficult than the fundamental philosophi- 
cal problem of knowledge which is the 
sphinx of the human intellect, and which 
has been only partly grasped, and never 
yet solved. Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, 
Berkeley, Hume, Locke, Spinoza, Kant, 
Schelling, Hegel and Spencer have la- 
bored upon it, but none of them has 
found the golden key. Should we expect 
the intellectual paradox to be absent in 
the problem of our recorded inspired 
knowledge? 

4. In any case of difficult fact to be de- 
cided in the courts we should not ex- 
pect conflicting details to be absent in the 
evidence,—not even from the expert tes- 
timony; and paradoxes and mysteries 
naturally abound in inspired testimony. 
Our Lord’s own utterances and testimony 
under questioning have this mystical, 
paradoxical character. Should we then 
expect the absence of all apparently con- 
flicting testimony, and deviation from the 
ordinary principles of evidence in a re- 


19 


corded plan of God, so comprehensive 
that it embraces many ages and stages of 
knowledge and culture vast in them- 
selves? Is this not in itself one main 
proof that the testimony of Scripture has 
not been manufactured, this fact that 
difficulties bristle in it, as they always do 
in true evidence in the courts; and that 
they are not ruled out of the Scriptural 
record, as they are not ruled out of the 
record of the courts? 

5. Because a lawyer can not resolve all 
the contradictions in his evidence, does 
the jury therefore believe it to be false? 
Because the judge can not resolve the 
paradox in two conflicting statements of 
principle, and can not force them into ab- 
solute harmony, does he therefore declare 
them errant or declare them untrue? 

That must be a marvelously penetrat- 
ing intellect and a judicial insight of in- 
finite intuition which would dare to go 
back through the ages, and, on the basis 
of such slender threads of induction as 
modern critics can gather (such as 
Bauer and others on the New Testament), 
resolve the paradoxes, harmonize the de- 
tails, and declare true or untrue the ap- 
parently conflicting elements in records 
whose documentary methods are un- 
known to us, except from internal or 
speculative data. The themes with which 
these records deal profess to be the Word 
of the Most High to man in all the var- 
ied stages of the latter’s thought and 
life, and the topics treated embrace the 
beginnings of the universe, the end of 
worlds, the Person of an Infinite Being, 
the salvation of the world, the opera- 
tions of an Incomprehensible Spirit, and 
the mysteries of an inconceivable eter- 
nity. Shall rude fingers of human clay 
dare to handle these things recklessly or 
irreverently? 

If the evidences of Christianity on 
these high themes be deemed trivial and 
trifling, surely the evidences that are 
marshaled against the records from As- 
syrian or Israelitish sources, by the men 
who dissect the pages of the Old Testa- 
ment, are singularly inconclusive and trifling. 





The session closed with prayer and 
the benediction, _ 


WEDNESDAY MORNING SESSION, MAY 4 
to A. M. President William Phillips Hali in the Chair 
OPENING DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES 


Dr. Burrell: Let us begin our service 
by singing No. 82: 

“A glory gilds the sacred page.” 

Dr. Burrell: Now we will turn to Psalm 
cxix., Aleph and Beth, and read responsive- 
ly. 

Prayer by Dr. Burrell: O God, we 
thank Thee that, sitting high in the 
heavens, Thou dost still condescend to 
be with us; and we thank Thee that 
Thou hast not hid Thyself in Thy throne 
room with guards about Thy doors; but 
Thou hast been pleased to bow the hea- 
vens and come down to reveal Thyself. 
We thank Thee for this, which is writ- 
ten, “In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us.” We thank Thee that Thy Word was 
articulated in the incarnation so that we 
have Thy very speech in Jesus Christ; and, 
oh, blessed be Thy name that, in addition 
to Jesus, Thine Only-begotten Son, Who 
was here only a brief lifetime and in a re- 
mote corner of the earth, Thou has given 
_ us a complete Word which was written 
by holy men, moved by the Spirit of God, 
in which this incarnate Word is perpetual- 
ized and univyersalized so that all the ends 
of the earth know about Him. We bless 
Thee for the Bible. We bless Thee for 
Christ who speaks in the Bible, and we 
rejoice, O God, that we have such a 
perfect and sweet confidence in this rev- 
elation of Thyself in Thy Word. We 
bless Thee for Christ, we bless Thee for 
the Bible! and we pray for those to whom 
the truth of Thine entire Word is not 
clear. The Lord grant that Jesus Christ 
may seem to those whom He came to 
save, not as a Root out of a dry ground, 
but as Thy Fuiness in the Flesh. Oh, we 
pray for those to whom Thy written Word 
is not clear, who are not sure whether it is 
true or not. Do Thou help them, we pray 
Thee, to search a little more deeply, and 
with all deference to the fact that God 
knows more than they do, until it shall be 
as when Thou didst speak out of Heaven 
concerning Thy Son. Say Thou to these 

20 


waiting, questioning, doubting ones, as 
Thou didst of the Christ, “This is My 
Beloved Son, hear ye Him.” And, O 
God, is this asking too much of Thee, 
that Thou wouldst speak to us through 
Thy Word, to every heart and con- 
science, that we may understand what it 
says, and that we may respond to it? 
Hear us, O Lord, and bless us and 
all in this fellowship throughout the world. 
We thank Thee, that, though in this 
controversy, we are still at the eye of 
the storm,—there is a perfect calm there, 
because we are with Thee. We thank 
Thee that Thy Church stands through 
all the ages. O God, grant that the 
Church may be more and more loyal 
to all the landmarks of truth, and that 
Thy people who stand beneath these 
Heavens may hear Thy voice, and may 
none ever say, “Behold it thundereth.” 
We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen, 





President Hall: In opening this second 
session of the Convention of The Ameri- 
can Bible League, I would like to an- 
nounce that various forms of literature 
in line with the purposes of the League 
are to be found on the table out yonder 
in the vestibule; copies of “The Bible 
Student and Teacher,” little slips giving 
an account of the inception and organiza- 
tion of the League and its plans and 
purposes, and also an advertisement from 
Revell & Co., of Sir Robert Anderson’s 
latest work on the “Pseudo-Criticism,” 
and various other publications that we are 
pleased to recommend for the reading 
and thoughtful consideration of all those 
who are seeking light on this great sub- 
ject. 

It gives me great pleasure to introduce 
this morning the last speaker anounced 
for last evening’s meeting, who, owing 
to the lateness of the hour, was prevent- 
ed from delivering the message unto us 
that I believe God has given him. It 
gives me very great pleasure to intro- 
duce Rev. Dr. S. L. Bowman, S.T.D., of 
Newark, N. J., the well known lecturer, 


a 


formerly head of the Theological Depart- 
ment of De Pauw University, a leading 
theologian and diligent student and ex- 


positor of the teachings of the Master, 
the Word of God. Professor Bowman 
will now address us. 


ADDRESS OF REV. S. L. BOWMAN, S.T.D. 
“Attack upon the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch”’ 


In Biblical Criticism there are Critics 
and Critics. These constitute two differ- 
ent and antagonistic Schools. The Ra- 
tionalistic School propose to subject the 
Holy Scriptures to their own scrutiny 
and judgment as an appeal to reason, re- 
jecting all that they cannot understand, 
which means all that is Supernatural; 
overlooking the indispensable fact that 
“the natural man receiveth not the things 
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish- 
mess unto him; neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned.” Truly, as a skeptical philosoph- 
er (Schelling) remarks: “Nothing is 
more doleful than the occupation of all 
rationalists who strive to make that ra- 
tional which declares itself above rea- 
son.” 

The Scriptures appeal to man’s spir- 
itual nature and point to his spiritual 
interests; accordingly he must have the 
spiritual preparation of mind to realize 
and appreciate these provisions. Now, 
the School of Loyal Faith, while by no 
means ignoring the just rights of reason 
in its legitimate exercise, holds that the 
Word of God is His Revelation ad- 
dressed to human reason, and yet that 
in so far as it reveals, it is something 
above reason. The rationalists of the 
Destructive School—whatever may be 
said of their judgment in view of the fact 
that they reach conclusions which are 
remarkably antagonistic to one another 
—make loud claims of possessing a mon- 
opoly of the scholarship of the twentieth 
century. And they have long had their 
say, that they might complete their work. 
But now the field is open for the oppos- 
ing School to be heard in reply, and its 
ability and scholarship will be made suf- 
ficiently obvious in the destruction of 
their skeptical postulates, of which pos- 
terity will form a just judgment. An in- 
destructible conviction abides in the as- 
surance of Isaiah (xxviii. 16): “Thus saith 


21 


the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion for . 
a Foundation, ...a tried stone...a 
sure Foundation; he that believeth shall 
not make haste.” 

I propose to restrict my remarks to 
the Pentateuch and its disputed author- 
ship, as related to the Historic Moses, 
as constantly voiced in the New Testa- 
ment. 

I apprehend that I shall not render 
myself liable to the charge of arguing 
“in a vicious circle” in violation of the 
principles of logic, in that I shall cite 
the authorities of the New Testament to 
prove the facts of the Old. For we are 
not at liberty to regard the Bible as one 
single Book, as respects human author- 
ship and authority. Nothing could be 
more obvious and evident than that it is 
a Collection of Sacred Writings, em- 
bracing sixty-six books in number, writ- 
ten by different men, living in different 
countries, in different centuries, ex- 
pressed in different languages; yet when 
brought together into combination, found 
to constitute a marvelous unity in plan 
and design, as a Revelation exactly 
adapted to the condition of universal 
mankind. And it should be carefully re- 
marked that the Scrolls of the Penta- 
teuch in the Synagogue were not at all 
divided into distinct books known as 
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers 
and Deuteronomy, as we have them now 
in print. These several titles were an 
afterthought intended merely to be des- 
criptive of the special subject-matter con- 
tained in each; so were the arrangements 
into the several chapters and verses. The 
Jews themselves designated the Penta- 
teuch AW AIM i. e. the Law of Moses; 
and their Rabbis styled it “the five-fifths 
of the Law.” 

Critical Argument from the Names of 
God. 

One principal objection alleged against 
the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch 


is the use made of two different names 
attributed to God, supposed to justify 
the inference that there were at least 
two, or even many, authors involved in 
writing earlier documents which then 
were reconstructed into one, which is 
our Scriptures. 

The first Name ascribed to God in the 
first verse is Elohim, which is derived 
from the word El, meaning power. That 
is, the supreme Person reveals and iden- 
tifies Himself before man, by His crea- 
tion of the material Universe. To sen- 
tient natures nothing is so impressive as 
the idea and exercise of power; and no- 
thing is so powerfully impressive as a 
God of Power thus revealing Himself to 
primeval man as pictured in the won- 
drous Creation. Then in the second Chap- 
ter we find another Name for the God of 
power; the Name Jehovah, which again 
is derived from Havah ( 11 ) which 
means to be, to breathe—this is, the 
self-existent, ‘immutable One. Hosea 
says, “Jehovah is His Name” (xii. 6). 
Why is this new Name then introduced? 
Because living, breathing creatures are 
here mentioned as now brought into ex- 
istence, in distinction from the material 
Universe; and if Yahveh be the restora- 
tion of the lost pronunciation of Jeho- 
vah, the very form of the Name is under- 
stood as revealing God as the Cause of 
the existence of His creatures. This is 
progress even in His revealing Names 
to man: (1) the Divine Personality of 
power, as Creator of the material Uni- 
verse; (2) as Jehovah the self-e:sistent 
First Cause of living Creatures; (3) and 
finally the two Names used conjointly to 
identify Him as the One eternal God of 
power and life. As a process of revela- 
tion to the understanding of Adam of 
the mutual relation between God and 
Man—the Creator and the Creature— 
could anything be happier? 

Yet Astruc, a Roman Catholic physi- 
cian to Lcuis XIV. of France, in the 
seventeenth century, and his followers 
ever since, have not been able to see in 
these Scriptural Names what Adam saw 
and understood from the first, t!iat this 
God of creative power had constructed 
man into a being, and constituted him 


into His own very image and likeness, 
when “the Lord God [Jehovah-Elohim] 
formed man out of the dust of the 
ground and breathed into his nostrils 
[o%n nov) Nishmath Khayyim,] not 
“the breath of life,’ but plural, the 
breath of lives—animal life, which alone 
would leave man a mere brute, intellect- 
ual life which placed him out of the brute 
category in intelligence, and spiritual 
life which made him Godlike; “and man 
became a living soul” (ii. 7). These des- 
tructive critics can discover only the 
merest indication—certainly not any con- 
clusive proof—that the Pentateuch must 
have been originally written, as they sur- 
mise, by different writers, who used these 
two names distinctively in prior docu- 
ments, which afterwards some unknown 
and unnamed Redactor took in hand to 
edit, and so doctored the scriptural state- 
ment, working it up into a oneness, plac- 
ing the two names together as they now 
appear in Genesis. 

Do such speculative guesses really re- 
quire serious refutation? I once knew 
a young minister who for some reason 
best known to himself wrote in his first 
sermons, “Jesus,” “Jesus,” “Jesus”; later 
on he changed his mind and wrote 
Christ, Christ, Christ, and finally he con- 
cluded to write the two names together, 
Jesus Christ. Now, employing the very 
same canon of criticism used by the Des- 
tructive Critics, these sermons must have 
been written by at least two different au- 
thors; and the two names brought to- 
gether by some redactor. I knew that 
young man about as well as I ever knew 
any one, and I feel entirely safe in say- 
ing that I know better; for I was myself 
that young minister! The circumstance 
is without significance, except to illus- 
trate how thoroughly superficial and un- 
warrantable are such conjectures as are 
applied to these Scriptures. Fairness in 
criticism demands that the same canon 
which is applied to secular and unsacred 
writings, shall be applied to the Scrip- 
tures. Remember that no adverse critic 
has been able to tell us who the Elohis- 
tic and who the Jehovistic writers were 
who antedated Moses; and who the re- 
dactor was of whom they claim to know 








so much. And what is fatal to their re- 
corded conclusions is the fact that these 
adverse critics disagree and quite antag- 
onize each others’ opinions. Well, I for 
one am not yet prepared to surrender 
what has been constantly regarded for 
three thousand years as a statement of 
historical fact, for mere conjectural fic- 
tion. 


The Argument from the New Testament. 


Now glance at the evidence furnished 
by the authority of the Evangelists, 
Apostles, and even by Jesus Christ Him- 
self, in the recognition and application to 


the Mosaic authority and authorship of 


the Pentateuch. 

Believers at least will realize repose of 
conviction and faith upon noting that the 
writers of the New Testament, and also 
our Savior, constantly and without var- 
iation or contradiction ascribe to Moses 
under God the authorship of these writ- 
ings. 

That he had all the literary acquire- 
ments and qualifications for the work, 
was attested by Stephen in his last mo- 
ments when he said: 

“Moses was learned in al] the wisdom 
of the Egyptians and was mighty in 
words and deeds” (Acts vii. 22). 

Moreover his integrity is vouched for 
by the author of Hebrews (iii. 5): 

“Moses indeed was faithful in all his 
house as a servant [of the Lord], for a 
testimony of those things which were 
afterward to be spoken.” 

Then the Apostle Peter affirms and 
confirms (Acts iii. 22) the choice of Mo- 
ses as the human type and representative 
of the coming Christ announced in Deut. 
(xviii. 18, 19): 

“And Jehovah said unto me... I will 
raise up a Prophet from among thy 
brethren, like unto thee; and I will put 
My words in His mouth; and He shall 
speak unto them all that I shall com- 
mand Him.” 

This assured belief of the Jews in the 
time of Christ is a fact beyond question 
or recall, as applied alone to the Historic 
Moses, for, when Jesus opened the eyes 
of the blind-born on the Sabbath, the 
Pharisees reviled both him and the 
Christ, saying: 


23 


“Thou art His disciples, but we are 
Moses’ disciples. We know that God 
spake unto Moses; as for this fellow, we 
know not whence He is” (John ix. 
28, 20). 


To the refractory Jews respecting their 
steadfast faith in the Moses of Scripture, 
Jesus Himself said: 


“Do not think that I will accuse you 
to the Father; there is one who accuseth 
you, Moses in whom ye trust. For had 
ye believed Moses, ye would have be- 
lieved Me, for [mark the singular pro- 
nouns] he wrote of Me. But if ye believe 
not his writings, how shall ye believe 
My words?” (John y. 45-47). 


So Moses alone is recognized as the 
prophet of Christ in the Pentateuch, and 
“his writings” are those which our Lord 
indorsed, which are no others than those 
which we have now. 

John Chrysostom, the “golden-mouth 
orator of the fourth century,’ remarked: 


“Moses did not put his name to the 
Five Books; nor did the historians who 
wrote after him prefix their names to 
their writings; but the blessed Paul ev- 
erywhere prefixes his name to his Epis- 
tles—excepting to that of Hebrews, 
where he had reason to be on his re- 
serve. Why is this [distinction]? [Be- 
cause] they [the evangelists] delivered 
their writings to those who were present 
when it was needless to put down the 
name. He [i. e. Paul] sent his writings 
to those at a distance, in the form of an 
Epistle, where the addition of a name 
wee ta (“Homily on Romans,” 

=1O)E 


I..Test the Book of GENESIS. 

(1) In John’s Gospel (i. 45) it is re- 
lated how that 

“Philip findeth Nathaniel and saith 
unto him: We have found Him of whom 
Moses in the Law, and the Prophets did 
write, Jesus of Nazareth.” 

The authenticative references stand 
verified in Gen. iii. 15; xxii. 18; xxvi. 4, 
etc, 

(2) John again states (i. 17): 

“For the Law was given by Moses, 


[but] grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ.” 


In viii. 19, 22, Jesus addresses the Jews: 


“Did not Moses give you the Law? 
Moses hath given you circumcision, not 
that it is of Moses, but of the fathers. . . 
If a man receive circumcision on the Sab- 


bath, that the Law of Moses may not be 
broken, are ye wroth with Me because 


I made a man every whit whole on the 
Sabbath?” 


This Mosaic Law of circumcision was 
originally ordained by Jehovah unto 
Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish 
race, and is recorded in Gen. xvii. 10, II: 

“This is My Covenant which ye shall 
keep between Me and you and thy seed 
after thee. . . It shall be for a token of 
the Covenant between Me and you.” 

(3) The first three Gospels (Matt. xix. 
4; Mk. x. 5; Lk. xvi. 18) record that the 
Pharisees once approached Jesus on the 
subject of divorce, saying: 

“Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
wife for every cause? Jesus replied: 
What did Moses command you? And 
they said, Moses suffered to write a bili 
of divorcement and to put her away. Je- 
sus answered: For-the hardness of your 
hearts he wrote you this precept. But 
from the beginning of the creation, God 
made them male and female.” 

The identification of the Mosaic au- 
thorship, and the verification of the ref- 
erence to Genesis, can be found in Gen. 
ii. 24; v. 2, and also in Deut. xxiv. 1-4. 


II.. Test the Book of EXODUS. 
(1) The Apostle John represents Jesus 
as saying: 
“Did not Moses give you the Law?” 
The verification is in Ex. xx. 24, and in 
Deut. xxx. 4. In Ex. xxxiv. 3, 4, we read: 
“And Moses came and told all the 


words of Jehovah. . . and wrote all the 
words of Jehovah.” 


In Deut. xxxiii. 3, 4, we read: 


[Every one] “shall receive thy words. 
Moses commanded us a Law, even the 
inheritance for the assembly of Jacob.” 

(2) In Matt. xv. 4, and Mk. vii. 10, we 
read: “For Moses said, Honor thy father 
and thy mother;” which is authorized and 
verified in both Ex. xx. 12, and in Deut. 
v.16: 

(3) Paul, in 2 Tim. iii. 8, makes dis- 
tinct reference to the names of those 
Sorcerers and Magicians who by their 
arts undertook to oppose Moses when he 
wrought miracles before Pharaoh for the 
deliverance of Israel—the only place in 
the Scriptures where their names are 
mentioned: 


24 


“Even as Jannes and Jambres wi 
stood Moses, so do these also resist th 
truth; men of corrupt minds, reprobat 
concerning the faith.” 


Verified in Ex. vii. 11. 
(4) In Hebrews viii. 5, we have: 


“A copy and shadow of heavenly 
things, even as Moses is warned of God 
when he is about to make a tabernacle 
for saith He, ‘See that thou make a 
things according to the pattern that was 
showed thee in the mount’,” 


0 iden 


ese 


And in Ex, xxy. 40, it reads: 


“See that thou make them after the 
pattern which hath been shown thee i 
the mount.” 





And again in Numbers viii. 4: 


“According to the pattern which Je 
hovah had shown Moses; so made he th 
candlestick.” 


(5) When Paul stood alone before th 
Jewish Sanhedrin, pleading that he had 
lived in all good conscience until that 
day, Ananias, who had usurped the high 
priesthood in the absence of the Roman 
procurator, commanded that the Apostle 
be smitten on the mouth with the iron 
heel of a shoe. 


een eee 


“Then Paul said unto him [Ananias], 
God shall smite thee, thou whited wall, 
for sittest thou to judge me according to_ 
the Law, and commandest me to be smit- 
ten contrary to the Law! and they that 
stood by, said, Revilest thou God’s high 
priest? And Paul said, I knew not, breth- 
ren, that he was high priest; for it is” 
written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the 
ruler of thy people.” This is verified in 
Ex. xxii. 28, which reads: “Thou stan 
not... .curse the ruler of thy people.” 
(Comp. XX. 20-22, etc.) 


III. Test the Book of LEVITICUS, 


Jesus having concluded His Sermon on> 
the Mount, descended to the plain and 
cured a leper of his malady, saying: 

“Go show thyself to the priest, and 
offer the gift that Moses commanded for 
a testimony unto them” (Matt. viii. 4, 
confirmed by Mk. i. 44). : 

And in Lev. xiv. we find the ample au- 
thentication and provision for the priest- 
ly inspection of such case, and the offer- 
ing to be made by the cured, where it 
is expressly stated that the Lord spake 
unto Moses (ver. 1) these directions. 


IV. Test the Book of NUMBERS. 


In the fourth Gospel (iii. 14), it is rep- 
resented that Jesus said unto Nicodemus: 


“As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man 
be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in 
Him, may have eternal life.” 


In Numb. xxi. 7-9, we find the identical 
historic occasion, and a description of 
the event given in detail: 


“And Moses prayed for the people. 
And Jehovah said unto Moses, Make 
unto thee a fiery serpent and set it upon 
a standard; and it shall come to pass, 
that every one that is bitten, when he 
seeth it shall live.” 


V. Test the Book of DEUTERONOMY. 


(1) In 2 Cor. xiii. 1, the Apostle Paul 
says: 
_ “At the mouth of two witnesses or 
three shall every word be established. 
Our Lord according to Matthew (xviii. 
15, 16) said: 
“Tf thy brother sin against thee, go 
show him his fault between thee and him 
_alone. . . .if he hear thee not, take with 
thee one or two witnesses, that at the 
-mouth of two witnesses or three, every 
word may be established.” 


' The warrant for these two references 
and citations is found in Deut. xvii. 6; 
'xix. 15: The Lord said unto Moses: 


“One witness shall not rise up against 
a man for any iniquity. . . .at the mouth 
of two witnesses, or at the mouth of 
three witnesses, shall the matter be es- 
tablished.” 


(2) The Sadducees said unto our Lord: 


“Moses said, If a man die having no 
‘children, his brother shall marry his wife 
and raise up seed unto his brother” 
(Matt. xxii. 24; Mk. xx. 19; Lk. xx. 28). 

This arrangement is provided for in 
Deut. xxv. 5. (Comp. Gen. xxxviii. 8). 


' (3) On the afternoon of our Lord’s 
‘rising, while journeying toward Em- 
' maus, which was about seven and a half 
_miles from Jerusalem, Jesus opened the 
‘understanding of the two disciple com- 
panions: 


: “Beginning at Moses and all the Proph- 


ets, He expounded unto them in all the 
Scriptures, the things concerning Him- 
self... .These are My words which I 
spake unto you while I was yet with you, 
that all things must needs be fulfilled, 











25 


which were written in the Law of Moses, 
and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms 
concerning Me” (Lk. xxiv. 27, 44). 


Biblical scholars understand how that 
Jesus here refers to the three grand di- 
visions of the Old Testament supposed 
to have been arranged by Ezra and his 
coadjutors upon his return from the 
exile; and not only the Pentateuch, but 
each division of those Scriptures abso- 
lutely bore witness to the closing events 
of Christ’s life as then cited by Himself 
—first of all, Moses is mentioned as an- 
other name for the Pentateuch, then the 
Prophets as such second division, and 
last of all, the book of Psalms, which 
stood the first, for all the other books in- 
cluded in the third and miscellaneous 
division of the Old Testament in the 
time of Christ. 

Moses recorded the very first predic- 
tive statement respecting the Seed of the 
woman (Gen. iii. 15). This however con- 
veyed merely the promised Fact of the 
Messianic Redeemer. Who He would 
be, what His character, through whom 
He should come, and when He should 
appear, no one could know. It was not 
until the time of Abraham that it was 
revealed from what Nation Messialt 
should spring (Gen. xxii. 18); or until 
the time of Jacob that people could know 
of what Tribe (xlix. 8); or until the time 
of David that they learned of what 
Family (Psa. Ixxxix. 3); or until the time 
of Isaiah that they knew that He would 
be born of a Virgin (Isa. vii. 14); or until 
the time of Micah that they knew of 
what place (v. 2); or until the angel Ga- 
briel appeared and hailed Mary as the 
Person, as “highly favored of the Lord,’ 
the one “blessed among women” (Matt, 
i, 20-23; Lu. i. 26-28). Here is progressive 
Revelation, constant and undeviating, 
brought forward just as fast as the ap- 
prehension and appreciation of men 
could receive the knowledge of the mag- 
nificent movement of God in His under- 
taking the Redemption of the world. 

Here are twenty or more express refer- 
ences found in the New Testament wri- 
ters, including many sayings of the Lord 
Jesus, all identifying Moses as the author 
of the Pentateuch, attested in every one 


of the five books included. Many more 
of indirect allusions could be adduced in 
further proof of the Mosaic authorship. 
We are now left to our own choice, whe- 
ther to accept the witness of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, John, Stephen, Peter, Paul, 
the writer of Hebrews, and above all, the 
authority of Jesus Christ Himself, as to 
the authorship of the Five Books, against 
the speculative opinions, conceits, wild 
conjectures, and sheer assumptions of the 


Destructive Critics, who deny the time- 
honored authorship of the Historic -Mo- 
ses. 

Where is the man who is willing to 
stand up before all Christendom and in- 
sist that neither our Lord Himself nor 
His Apostles knew what they were talk- 
ing about, or did not mean what they 
said, when they so repeatedly and em- 
phatically ascribed the authorship of the 
Pentateuch to the Historic Moses? 





Second General Topic 


“PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE ATTACK ON THE 
BIBLE” 


President Hall: After listening to the 
instructive and interesting address of Dr. 
Bowman, necessarily left over from last 
evening, we now proceed to take up the 
regular topic of this morning: “Practical 
Consequences of the Attack on the Bi- 
ble.” Men of large experience, who have 
had peculiar advantages for observing 
the practical consequences of the dissem- 


ination of the current false views of the 
Bible, have been selected to address you 
on some phases of this topic. 


It. gives me special pleasure to intro- 
duce to you as the first speaker, Rev. 
Albert H. Plumb, D.D., Pastor of the 
Walnut Avenue Congregational Church, 
Roxbury, Boston, Mass., whose theme is: 
“What I Have Seen of the Results.” 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ALBERT H. PLUMB 


“What I Have Seen of the Results” 


Mr. President and Christian friends: 
While I appreciate very warmly the hon- 
or and privilege of making here certain 
observations which I am anxious to press 
upon the public mind, I must, at the out- 
set, call attention to two things. 

One is that the topic asigned for this 
session is not one requiring the learning 
of a Biblical expert in all the questions 
involved. Experts have their value. They 
sometimes claim an exclusive hearing, 
but, as Gladstone said, “We do ourselves 
wrong if we bow to the authority of ex- 
perts out of their peculiar province.” 
Were this not so, I would not have been 
present among this body of distinguished 


26 


scholars; but I have felt that the com- 
mon man is competent to understand 
consequences. Indeed, our Lord sent 
the common people, you remember, di- 
rectly to the Old Testament Scriptures 
to settle the greatest of all questions, 
“What think ye of Christ?” saying “They 
are they which testify of me.” And so 
I have ventured to think that any one 
who has knowledge of the philosophy of 
cause and effect can say what the effect 
of certain principles involved in this dis- 
cussion must be; any one who has been 
at all conversant with history will be 
enabled to see what the consequences 
have been in the past; and any one at 





—_ 





all alert and sensitive to spiritual inter- 


ests is competent to say what is now the 
effect, occurring all around us every- 
where, of certain principles under dis- 
cussion. And as I have been trying for 
some forty-five years to preach the Gos- 


'pel within sight of the gilded dome of 


the State House in Boston, and as I have 
had the privilege and honor of sitting for 
over twenty years on the Prudential 
Committee of the American Board of 
Missions every Tuesday, there have been 
thrust upon me all the time some of 
these evil consequences, and also the 
good effects of the contrary principles, 


and therefore I venture to hope that an 
ordinary minister may not be out of 


place in this scholarly company today in 
making known what he has seen. 
The second thing is, that it is a matter 


of inexpressible grief for a man to have 
to state what he must of these conse- 


quences. I said I was eager to do this, 
not that it is a welcome task, but be- 
cause of its vital necessity and vast im- 
portance. 

True, it is to be said that these harm- 
ful views do not always do as much 
harm as they ought to; that is, God does 
not always leave a man to the unhappy 
influences of any one destructive princi- 
ple. He supplies, in His gracious provi- 
dence, counteracting agencies which limit 
the deleterious effect; and I am happy 
to say that among those counteracting 
influences oftentimes I have observed the 
power of the lovely Christian character 
of some of the higher critics. And yet 
I must remember they were not nur- 
tured on this diet, and I ask myself, if a 
generation is trained on this new food, 
what sort of Christians will they be? 


When there is time to reap the har- 


vest of this new sowing, what will the 
harvest be? 

I was present years ago at a sympo- 
sium in Dr. Joseph Cook’s parlors. ‘There 
were gathered at the meeting many dis- 
tinguished philanthropists, men and wo- 
men of culture, but who rejected the 
Christian religion. One of those ladies 
remarked, “Time was when you used to 
conjure by the memory of our praying 
mothers, but we are of the second gen- 


27 


eration of unbelievers, and that argu- 
ment does not apply.” The more’s the 
pity. 

And so, it is not as a disputant, with 
an “I-told-you-so,” that I come here, but 
with sincere sorrow, sorrow of heart. 

I. And the first point I make in re- 
gard to the destructive influence of the 
higher criticism is, that its eagerness to 
present every possible captious objection 
to the Bible greatly ministers to our nat- 
ural aversion to spiritual truth, and pro- 
motes in the public mind a suspicious 
complaining attitude towards the Book 
which, in view of its kind intention and 
its useful influence, it does not deserve. 

You remember perhaps a work that 
appeared many years ago on “The Phil- 
osophy of the Plan of Salvation,” writ- 
ten by President Walker. The introduc- 
tion to that book, by Professor Calvin E. 
Stowe, pictured two men, Contumax and 
Benignus, who were cast up on a desert 
island. Benignus fell on his knees and 
thanked God for saving his life, while 
Contumax growled that he had lost ev- 
erything he had. On looking around, 
they found a little cavern, and there was 
material for fire, and coarse raiment and 
good, plain food. The one was full of 
praise that the benignant government 
thought so kindly of them, while the 
other complained that he never had worn 
such clothes in his life, or eaten such 
food, forgetful that the necessities of 
the case limited such provision. 

Now, we are all sinners, and God 
is holy, and the Bible comes as a remedy 
for our sin, that we may be at peace with 
God. The hard facts in our situation 
were here before the Bible came, and the 
Bible is to be looked upon primarily as 
coming to help us. But by the necessi- 
ties of the case, if we ever are to be 
reconciled to a holy God, there must be 
certain severe conditions, and that we 
do not like. This disposition to find 
fault with the truths of the Bible is too 
prevalent. It does not need to be fanned 
into flame, as the critics are doing, in 
that they are all the while dictating to 
the Almighty how He should have been 
pleased to reveal Himself and His plan 
of salvation. They say, “Why didn’t 


more than one writer mention this?” 
“Why didn’t another writer mention 
that?” “Why didn’t he do it oftener?” 
“Why don’t we find this?” and “Why 
not that?” All these things minister to 
this complaining spirit, and that is a 
wrong spirit. We ought to welcome the 
Bible with an expectant spirit, because 
we have evidence enough that the inten- 
tion of the Bible is good, and we ought 
to look kindly on its provisions. 

II. The second charge I make against 
the Higher Critics as to the evil conse- 
quences I have observed, is, that in their 
appeal for perfect candor, in asking us 
to come to the Bible as we would to any 
other book, they are making a claim 
which, in view of the valid evidence of 
its authority, does violence to our in- 
tellectual nature, and also to every grate- 
ful instinct of the Christian heart. 

Why, to comply with that request were 
to commit a degrading crime against 
our profoundest intellectual convictions. 
We should be false to the dictates of 
tender Christian gratitude were we to 
come to the Bible as if we had never seen 
it. Oh, my friends, we have seen it, we 
have tried it, we know it by experience. 

When I was a boy fifteen years old, a 
clerk in Western New York, I felt that 
the great crisis of my life had come; 
that God was calling, and it was to im- 
peril my soul not to come to Him at 
once. Then and there I tried to yield 
to His claims, but I was in great anguish 
and doubt. There was a good woman 
whom I saw at the prayer-meeting who 
marked some passages in my “Daily 
Food.” . “Fear not, thou worn Jacob. I 
will help thee, saith the Lord.” My name 
was not Jacob, but that promise just 
suited me. I was not a worm in value, 
but I was in impotence. My cry was 
that of the kymn: 


“Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord, 

Whose hope still hov’ring round Thy 
Word, 

Would light on some sweet promise 
there, 

Some sure support against despair.” 


I clung to that promise in my hour of 
distress as a man does to a spar in the 
drowning waves. 

“Be not dismayed, for I am thy God; 


28 


I will strengthen thee; yea, I will up- 
hold thee with the right hand of my 
righteousness.” 

Do you think now I can ever come to 
that promise, or to the Book of Isaiah, — 
without a feeling of prepossession in its — 
favor? Speak well of the bridge that has 
carried you safely over a chasm! 

We have a room in our house called 
Fred’s room. Fred has been in heaven 
four years. There are a couple of pic- 
tures hanging in that room; one of them 
is a picture of one of our sea-side resorts 
in the summer time, and the other is a 
picture of that same resort when the 
wild tempests of winter are on it, and a 
dismantled wreck lies there. These two 
pictures hang upon the wall by one ~ 
cord, a piece of rope ten feet long and 
one inch thick, and it was by that cord 
that my boy was bound to the rigging of 
that vessel as it drifted helpless nine 
hours in a November storm. The last 
twelve years of his life and his precious 
companionship were due to that rope. 
Dear friends, can I ever go into that 
room and look upon that rope as upon 
any other old rope? 

I have a friend, long a missionary in 
India, one who has known so much about 
the Bible women in that land, and loves 
the Bible so gratefully that in passing 
through a room sometimes she can not 
restrain herself from going where the 
Bible lies, and laying a caressing hand 
upon it. The feeling we have for that 
book is not like that we have for any 
other book, if we know anything about 
it in our experience. ' 

III. Furthermore, it seems to me that 
the critics create the impression very 
largely in the public mind that they are 
doing great service by controverting ev- 
erything that is dear in our Bible, and 
that they are yet to be regarded as 
friends of righteousness, and no one is 
ever to object to their course, or ques- 
tion their standing in the church. 

Here is the Boston Transcript of last 
Saturday, telling about this meeting and 
saying that “Orthodox leaders deplore 
the launching of the Bible League,” be- 
cause “religious strife is feared.” It 
adds: 


“The orthodox leaders admit that the 
higher critics have never been contro- 
-versalists. These critics have stated their 
positions candidly. They have not 
sought to force them upon others. The 
league comes in at this time and brings 
controversy with it.” 


Now religious controversy is not nec- 
essarily an evil, any more than Presi- 
dent Eliot’s holy war in his magnificent 
contention just now for the “joy of 
work,” against the misconception and 
prejudices of certain valiant knights of 
labor. Why don’t the secular editors, 
who often blame ministers for standing 


up in behalf of certain principles as 


. 
{ 


against others, take their own medicine, 
and quit arguing about trusts and the 
labor problems? Has there ever been 
any other way in which men come to 
amore general agreement as to facts and 
opinions than by discussion, unless it be 
by the test of practical working, and that 
involves argument, to show which works 
best and is more nearly true? The con- 
troversies of the Church have by no 
means been confined to trivial matters; 
some of the greatest heroes of the ages 
have been noted controversialists, whose 
work was a necessity and an honor, and 
resulted in imperishable treasures for 
mankind. 

As human nature is, however, relig- 
ious controversy often brings a strain 
upon kind feeling, and is liable to work 
incidental harm. And the responsibility 
for introducing religious controversy, 

“with all its perils, rests always upon 
those who introduce new views, and thus 
controvert received opinions. 

The first sentence quoted above would 
be exactly true if one letter were omit- 
ted: “The higher critics have ever been 
controversialists.” Leave out three let- 

ters from the third sentence, and that 
would be true: concerning their opinions, 
“they have sought to force them upon 
others’; not only by the force of the 
better reason as they think, but by the 
arrogant claim of authority, many of 
them asserting, and most of them im- 
plying, that about all the brains and aH 
the scholarship are so far on their side, 
that our “sanity” may be doubted if we 


do not accept their conclusions. If their 
efforts have been censured, it has been 
because of the spirit and method some- 
times shown; never to challenge their 
tight of inquiry. Congregationalists es- 
pecially are utterly impatient at the erec- 
tion of any barrier to free thought. No 
fetters on the mind, no restraint on the 
right of free inquiry. But the critics 
have no monopoly of free speech. 

Freedom to attack existing beliefs im- 
plies freedom to defend them. The lib- 
erty to assault the citadel of truth is no 
more sacred than the liberty to defend 
that citadel. If anyone and everyone 
who calls himself a higher critic is free 
to build up his earthworks, and plant his 
batteries, and train his guns, and keep up 
perpetual cannonade against whatever 
cherished belief he feels called upon to 
demolish, he must not be surprised, or 
his friends hold up their hands in holy 
horror at religious strife, if at length, 
after long patience, some answering 
shots from the heavy artillery of Chris- 
tian defence come thundering along his 
way. 

Yet, as the critic’s destructive work 
is directed at the whole body of Chris- 
tian believers, charging them with teach- 
ing error, it names no person in particu- 
lar; and, since the reply of necessity 
must be aimed at the individual critic, 
outsiders sometimes think such perso- 
nalities are unfair, and cry “Persecution!” 
The critics themselves, however, do not, 
for they are used to it, having on hand 
all the time such bitter controversies 
among themselves. 

A few months ago the versatile and 
volatile Rev. B. Fay Mills resumed his 
peculiar and most remarkable advocacy 
of his new evangelism in Wisconsin. It 
was asserted “that he now throws all 
doctrinal controversy overboard, throws 
aside all theological discussion and pre- 
sents truth in which all churches meet.” 
This is what he calls “constructive 
work,” in a recent personal letter, in 
courteous reply to a friendly note of 
inquiry from me: “I will neither criti- 
cise men, nor institutions, nor doctrines, 
nor will I reply to criticism.” But in the 
same breath his next Sunday sermon 


was announced as “The True Biography 
of Jesus.” Constructive work, indeed! 
What could be more violently destruc- 
tive of the foundations of the faith of the 
churches than thus in effect to denounce 
the accepted biography of Jesus as false? 
This is precisely what many of the high- 
er critics are doing, controverting our 
belief in the record of Jesus’s life and 
work. 

It seems as if some of these men want 
to eat their cake and have it too. They 
want all the reputation of being leaders 
in the Christian Church, and yet tear 
away the foundations on which that 
Church stands. Thus they develop a 
low moral sense as to the responsibility 
of the position of representative expo- 
nents of the Christian religion. The 
right*to hold and teach opinions destruc- 
tive of the Christian religion is not con- 
sistent with the right to stand as the 
friend and teacher of that religion. 

IV. The disposition of some of our 
critical friends to deny the authority of 
God’s written Word, and install in its 
place the ideas of the critic as to what the 
Bible ought to teach, and what ought 
to be true, is fostering an offensive hu- 
man pride and greatly imperils the rare 
and precious virtue of humility. 

I was at an installation the other day 
of a fine young minister. His paper very 
properly said: “I believe in the Divine 
authority of the Bible in matters of 
faith and practice’; and then he added, 
very improperly: “The reason why I be- 
lieve it is that the Scriptures find me.” 
The next man may say: “Some parts of 
the Bible find me and other parts do not, 
and those I reject.” That installs the 
man’s opinion instead of the Word of 
God in the place of spiritual authority. 
Every man makes his own Bible, accord- 
ing to that. 

Thus the author of “The Christ of To- 
Day,” in arguing that all will be saved 
because he thinks “the human soul is 
forever indispensable to Christ,” says, 
“Many texts may be adduced from the 
New Testament against the idea of a Di- 
vine Choice inclusive of humanity; but 
these isolated passages must be read in 
the light of the great declaration of John: 


30 
























‘God is light, and in Him is no dark 
ness at all’... Among those texts thu 
trampled under foot are some of the mos 
solemn declarations of our Lord, con 
cerning the judgments He will pronounce 
at the last day. My opinion, the judg 
ment of a poor sin-blinded mortal on m 
way to the judgment seat of Christ, i 
thus made to override the judgment o 
the Judge on the throne, simply becaus 
I have a feeling that Christ’s words cas! 
a shadow on the character of God. This 
is where we are left when we deny th 
authority of God in His written word 
And I submit, it ought to be, and fro 
my observation I find that it is, hurtfu 
to a person’s character to assume this 
lofty prerogative of sitting in judgmeni 
on the truth of Christ’s words. It i 
placing a man on a pedestal, very flat 
tering to human pride, but very destruc 
tive of the true humility befitting ou 
condition. The function of reason comes 
in when Christ presents His credential 
to us. He said of those who sinfully re 
jected His words: “If I had not done 
among them the works which none other 
man did, they had not had sin.” By 
many infallible proofs he is accredited 
at the bar of our reason as a trustworthy 
witness. Concerning the subject matter 
of his testimony my information is so 
meagre, and my mind so liable to be 
prejudiced, that for me to dispute his 
testimony, is to do violence to right 
principles of conduct. It is to show such 
an unreasonable self-sufficiency as con- 
stitutes a deplorable blemish on one’s: 
character. a 

Many years ago we had a glowing 
prospectus from a great publishing od 
in this city, announcing a splendid vol- 
ume they were to print, giving the ex- 
purgated words of Jesus. The author 
informed us how deliberately and de- 
voutly he had weighed, in the extremely 
delicate scales of his super-sensitive sub- 
jective sensibilities, all the words at- 
tributed to Jesus, and now, at last, the 
world might be very sure it had got 
back to the real Christ. Well, what be- 
came of this one more endeavor to doc- 
tor the New Testament to suit a con-: 


. . i 
ceited man’s whims? By long search ] 


; 


found a single dust-covered copy in the 
Boston Public Library, safely entombed 
with a thousand other paltry products 
of human folly. 
Before I was a minister I was a pro- 
duce commission merchant in Buffalo; 
and when I wanted to buy a quantity of 
flour I would go on board a vessel and 
try the different brands, taking a pinch 
in my fingers to decide by the feeling 
something of the quality, and the adap- 
tation to different markets. I have been 
reminded of this when I have seen the 
self-assurance of some critics, taking up, 
as it were, in the fingers of their sub- 
jective sense, a certain portion of Holy 
Writ, and shutting their eyes to all exter- 
nal evidence, oracularly saying they feel 
that this passage was written a thou- 
sand years later than its alleged date. 
Taking up another passage, they say, 
they feel it is wholly spurious, and must 
be thrown out altogether. A third pas- 
_sage they examine, and gravely decide 
that their feelings will allow that to 
stand, at least for the present. For such 
critics to demand that their feelings 
shall give law to everybody else is not 
the way to cultivate humility. 
I had a habit, some years ago, of go- 
ing around the house in the dark the last 
thing before retiring, to see that the 
lights were out and the fires safe. I 
went one night through the dining-room 
and thought I would go to the window 
and see what the weather promise was 
for the morrow. I never could go 
straight in the dark, and I went beyond 
the window, and got hold of a map on 
the wall, and put my head behind it, 
and looked to see what the weather was 
out of doors. “Well,” I said, “it is the 
blackest night out there I have seen for 
a long time!” When I let go the map 
-its rustle showed my mistake. I went 
back a little and pulled the shade away 
and looked out, and there the sweet stars 
were shining in their serenity. I was 
not in the right place; and, my friends, 
we need to get into the right place, as 
Daniel did. “Are your windows open 
toward Jerusalem, to hail the coming 
of the King?” 

V. Furthermore, the critics, in weak- 


31 


ening the authority of the Bible, weaken 
moral restraints. 

They claim they do not. They say 
the Bible is more precious and more 
powerful when you get rid of all these 
objectionable things; many pretended 
miracles which criticism throws out; and 
what is left is better adapted to be use- 
ful. But somehow there are people that 
don’t seem to think that way. One of 
them was saying lately: “Our minister 
is so busy telling us how many things 
there are in the Bible that we must not 
believe, and how many there are that it 
is too early to tell whether we are to 
believe them or not, that he leaves us 
in such a haze that for many days some- 
times neither sun nor stars appear.” 

If any one thing is clear in regard to 
human duty, it is the obligation to keep 
holy the Sabbath day. In the constitu- 
tion of man, in the Decalogue, in the 
example of our Savior, in the providen- 
tial favor attending Sabbath observance, 
God has made known His will that one 
day in seven should be set apart for 
religious uses, so far as the claims of 
necessity and mercy allow. Any man 
who breaks the fourth commandment 
weakens those moral restraints which 
religion alone can supply, and which are 
indispensable to the maintenance of so- 
cial order. 

A public example of such violation of 
God’s law was lately given in sight of 
hundreds of young people, and against 
the remonstrance of Christian teachers, 
by one who thus showed that his rev- 
erence for the Bible and his regard for 
the moral restraints it provides had been 
lessened, his claim to the contrary not- 
withstanding, by his efforts as a leader 
in the destructive criticism of our time. 

In an argument recently a young min- 
ister, when a passage from the Bible 
was quoted against his position, instant- 
ly responded, with an air of finality, “Oh, 
but that is in the Old Testament.” 

“It is written,” “it is written,’ again 
and again exclaimed our Lord, in that 
awful hour when the world’s salvation 
was trembling in the balance; when 
alone with wild beasts in the wilderness 
He wrestled in dire encounter with the 


arch fiend against all the subtlest temp- 
tations of hell; when, if He had swerved 
a hair’s breadth from the line of perfect 
restitude, He would have been forever 
incapacitated for His mediatorial office. 
It. was to the Old Testament then that 
He turned for spiritual strength and safe 
guidance in the ordering of His conduct. 
Can we deride His example, and despise 
that source of power to which He resort- 
ed in His bitterest conflict with our com- 
mon foe? 

I knew a minister for whom the de- 
structive criticism had destroyed faith in 
the Bible. He left the ministry, and he 
refused to let his children attend Sunday 
School, for he said: “They would have 
so much to unlearn when they grew up.” 
Some of them have grown up, and if 
you knew the sad facts as I do, you 
would agree that those families who 
bring up their children on the Sunday 
newspaper, are not as likely to succeed 
as those who “desire for them the sin- 
cere milk of the Word, that they may 
grow thereby.” 

I was at an installation, and a Congre- 
gational minister, who held’ the new 
ideas about the Bible, said to the young 
minister: “I congratulate you on enter- 
ing the ministry at a time when Christi- 
anity is sloughing off its old forms and 
putting on the new”; and he went on as 
if everything was “without form and 
void,” as the world was in the first chap- 
ter of Genesis. 

The minister who gave the address 
to the people told the old story about 
the skipper on a fishing-smack, who 
went below for a nap, having put the 
helm in the hand of a new man, telling 
him to steer by a particular star. By 
and by, the man got asleep, and when he 
awoke, the star was away behind him. 
He waked up the captain, crying, “Cap- 
tain! Give me another star, I have got 
by that one.” 

That is the claim of a great many peo- 
ple; they think they have got beyond the 
eternal guiding-stars, when the trouble 
is, their own heads are turned. All this 
tends to weaken moral restraint. That 
minister who was counselling his friend 


and giving him congratulations because 
everything was in a state of flux, now 
thinks there are a great many men that 
are wiser than Jesus ever was. He says 
if Jesus were alive now he could give 
Him points. Now, do you think that is 
good for public morals? 

VI. Again, in thus weakening the au- 
thority of the Bible the Written Word, 
you are paralyzing Christian effort.. 

Dr. Wayland used to say there is one 
thing that the Church has never appreci- 
ated, and that is, the power of prayer. 
It is an exalted privilege to lift the flood- 
gates by which the Almighty pours out 
on mankind the blessings of His grace. 
Are we not continually urging Chris- 
tians to a higher estimate of the value 
of prayer? 

But I know several pastors who have 
given up their midweek prayer-meeting 
to give lectures on Higher Criticism. 
The views of these erratic men got a 
voice in one of our religious journals, 
setting forth the idea that there is a 
question whether this great instrumen- 
tality has not outgrown its usefulness, 
and prayer-meetings ought to be aban- 
doned. 

Within a fortnight, at the spring meet- 
ing of two Congregational Conferences 
in Massachusetts, comprising some sixty 
churches, I heard profound expressions 
of regret that doubt on such a matter 
had been so foolishly spread, and that 
such a question had found a place on 
the printed programs, and in the discus- 
sions of two such important meetings. 
It was said, when the early Church was 
enjoying the Pentecastal gift, certain 
brethren continued with one accord in 
prayer and supplication with the women; 
and we read*of a place by the riverside 
where prayer was wont to be made. But 
at once the reply is ready: “That fur- 
nishes no guide, for, you know, scholars 
are not all agreed on the historicity of 
those details in the Book of Acts.” 

Take another instance: Our Boston 
Monday meeting of Congregational min- 
isters was addressed a few years ago 
by a very estimable and scholarly cler- 
gyman on the higher criticism. This 
professor advised us not to preach in 


our pulpits on these matters, but to give 
afternoon lectures. “For,” he said, “if 
any of your thoughtful people think that 
their pastor does not know that Moses 
did not write the Pertateuch, or that 
there were two Isaiahs and perhaps 
more, you will lose your influence as a 
competent religious leader.” He also 
said the conclusions of the higher criti- 
cism are only matters of opinion which 
do not affect our work in bringing men 
into the life of God. I am compelled 
to take issue squarely with this view of 
the practical effect of these opinions. 
Opinions shape conduct. Ideas control 
life. Our belief concerning the messen- 
ger may give force to the message, 
“They will reverence my Son,” that is, 
if they think He is God’s Son. Christ 
speaks of those to whom the word of 
God came, and our effort to induce men 
to yield to the demands of this Word of 
God are directly and powerfully hin- 
dered when the critics tell them it is not 
the Word of God at all, but a fraud, a 
pretense, palmed off as the Word of 
God, by certain parties for partisan ends. 
At the very time the above plea for the 
harmlessness of the higher criticism was 
made, the pastors addressed were en- 
gaged in an earnest effort to induce 
many young people who seemed to be 
entering the Christian life to confirm 
their new purpose, and ensure their 
growth and usefulness, by coming to 
Christ’s table in affectionate response to 
the Savior’s tender desire, and in loyal 
obedience to His express command. But 
according to the historical methods of a 
distinguished higher critic, whose writ- 
ings were then being pressed upon the 
public attention, whose manifest desire 
to rid the ordinance of the Lord’s Sup- 
per of its expiatory teaching, shapes his 
treatment of the narrative, our young 
people were being told that it is not cer- 
tain that Jesus ever instituted the sup- 
per, that while there may be a sentimen- 
tal naturalness in the usage to those who 
care to observe it, there is no divine 
authority for its observance. This 1s 
only one of the ways in which the des- 
tructive criticism, now constantly com- 
ing into our families in certain publica- 


33 


tions, weakens the hands of pastors in 
their spiritual work, 

VII. One thing more, the radical 
higher critics take away our Lord by 
destroying our confidence in Him as a 
competent and trustworthy guide. 

Christ called the Old Testament the 
Word of God, and declared its authority: 
“The Scripture cannot be broken.” He 
said it testified of Him; He constantly 
referred to it as a truthful record of 
God’s dealings with men; He quoted it 
as the end of controversy in the prac- 
tical guidance of life for others and for 
Himself. But the higher critics say that 
in all this He was either mistaken, or 
repeated popular misconceptions which 
He knew were not true. In either case 
we can say, “They have taken away my 
Lord.” 

At an examination of a theological stu- 
dent not long ago, he said: “There is 
great doubt among scholars whether 
there ever was such a man as Abraham.” 
“What do you think?” he was asked. 
“Well,’ he replied, “I am inclined to 
think, on the whole, he was a myth and 
not aman.” Now if Christ did not know 
whether Abraham was a myth or a man, 
He could not say, “I am the light of the 
world;” and if He knew he was a myth 
and not a man, and yet spoke of him as 
a man, He could not say, “I am the 
Truth.” Christ said to the Jews: “Your 
Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day 
and he saw it and was glad.” 

Thus the higher critics do not leave 
us either the intellectual competence or 
the moral trustworthiness of Jesus. 
What sort of a gospel have they left us 
to take to this poor, lost, sin-blinded 
world? 

Suppose the recent claim of Canon 
Henson and other critics is accepted as 
true, and we agree that Christ had not a 
virgin for His mother, that He did not 
rise from the dead, that miracles do not 
happen. It is said, we still have Christ’s 
ethical teachings; but divested of their 
authority as the utterance of a divine 
Christ, every man is at liberty to dispute 
even those ethical teachings. 

Moreover, it is something more than 
an ethical scheme, more than a system 


of moral philosophy, this sin-smitten 
race needs. What of the spiritual teach- 
ings of Christ, of His office and mis- 
sion, and the relation of the soul to 
God? Pretty much all those teachings 
which are distinctive here, the critics tell 
us are “irrational and superstitious ac- 
cretions, the outcome of pagan and bar- 
barous ages.” And to account for those 
supposed accretions, the critics of the 
New Testament and of the Old seem to 
know or imagine a great deal concern- 
ing the partisan motives of various 
schools of thought, or of certain un- 
known writers they suppose existed at 
the proper time to work these wonderful 
changes in the record. But the result is 
that if we trust the conjectures of the 
critics, we shall listen in vain to hear 
that voice that has been sounding down 
through the ages, and echoing in the 
hearts of innumerable mighty heroes of 
faith, through whose valiant service the 
religion of Jesus has been transforming 
society, exalting humanity, and moving 
the race on towards the millennial glory. 

And when we turn away from the 
noisy din of the critics, moved by the 
irrepressible longings of our spiritual na- 
ture, we hear again resounding in the in- 
nermost chambers of the soul, the voice 
of that radiant One who is walking amid 
the golden candlesticks, the Churches of 
His love, saying: “All power is given 
unto Me in heaven and in earth.” “The 
Son of Man is come to seek and to save 
that which is lost, and to give His life 
a ransom for many.”- “I came down 
from Heaven not to do mine own will, 
but the will of Him that sent Me. And 
this is the will of Him that sent Me, that 
every one that seeth the Son, and be- 
lieveth on Him, may have everlasting 
life, and I will raise him up at the last 


President Hall: We will now have the 
pleasure of listening to Rev. Dr. Remen- 
snyder, of St. James’ Lutheran Church, 


34 


day.” “I am the resurrection and the 
life.” “The hour is coming in which 
all that are in the graves shall hear the 
voice of the Son of Man, and shall come 
forth.” “When the Son of Man shall 
come in His glory, and all the holy an- 
gels with Him, then shall He sit upon the 
throne of His glory, and before Him 
shal’ be gathered all nations, and He 
shall separate them one from an- 
other.” 

It is a matter of vast concern for me, 
for every soul of man, whether any one 
ever said all this who had a right to 
say it, or whether such voices are the 
echoes of pitiable folly and sacrilegious 
fraud. And therefore it is a legitimate 
undertaking in which we are here to-day 
engaged, in pointing out the unscientific, 
untrustworthy, unwholesome character 


of that destructive criticism which hides ~ 


from suffering humanity its adorable Re- 
deemer, Who alone is able and mighty 
to save. 

That is to say, this is a worthy en- 
gagement on occasion. President Way- 
land’s homely phrase was wise: “Do not 
spend much time in boosting up the Bi- 
ble.” We do not. This Convention 
voices the occasional efforts of the 
friends of the Bible. Our main work all 
the time is to preach the Word of God, 
to teach the Bible, to apply its authorita- 
tive principles to all the complicated 
problems of life, and to exemplify its 
teaching in our lives. 

“For the Word of God is quick and 
powerful, living and active, sharper than 
any two-edged sword, piercing even to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, 
and of the joints and marrow, and is 
quick to discern the thoughts and intents 
of the heart.” 


in this City, in further discussion of the 
general topic, “The Practical Conse- 
quences of the Attack on the Bible.” 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. REMENSNYDER 
“ Christianity Placed On Trial ”’ 


That a crisis confronts Christianity is 
not to be denied. Never has there been 
such a concert of energetic thinking di- 
rected against the cardinal tenets of the 
Christian faith. The peculiarity of the 
situation is that Rationalism within the 
Church is joining its hostile forces with 
those without. Secular thinkers treat 
orthodox Christianity with curt intoler- 
ance, assuming that the victory over it 
is already won. And with vast learning 
and immense painstaking, brilliant schol- 
ars, professedly Christian, are turning 
the fire of a destructive criticism upon 
the Bible. While declaring that their 
aim is to give us the real message of the 
Bible, and claiming a motive to honor it, 
they are insidiously destroying the main 
grounds upon which can rest any belief 
in its inspiration or any respect for its 
authority. This new attack on the Bi- 
ble has evidently put Christianity anew 
on trial. 

And constantly it is urged, that we 
must look upon the Scriptures from a 
totally new standpoint, that Christian 
theology must undergo a radical recon- 
struction, and that the great and essen- 
tial Christian doctrines must submit to 
cardinal modifications. The Bible is sim- 
ply a book of moral edification, not a 
revelation of divine truth. If Christian- 
ity will not thus adapt itself to the spirit 
of the age, we are told that it can not 
survive, but will be relegated to the 
niche of an effete, outworn faith. 

But let not the hearts of believers 
fail, nor let any one waver in his firm, 
full confession. It was meant that the 
Kingdom of God should pass through 
just such crises as this. True faith is 
but purified and strengthened by the se- 
verity of the crucible. Time and again 
has the Church met such crises, when 
the powers of darkness have premature- 
ly rejoiced, and when the hearts of 
Christians have grown faint. But ever 
has she issued forth victoriously from 
the peril, and entered upon a larger and 
more prosperous career. But the point 
for us to weigh is that this has not been 


35 


done without effort. Victory can not be 
won by inertia, listlessness and indiffer- 
ence. Attack must be met by defence. 
Sleepless aggressiveness must be resist- 
ed by untiring vigilance. Scholarship 
must be answered by scholarship. Spe- 
cialists must be refuted by specialists. 
If we allow the citadel to be carelessly 
defended and exposed, we must not be 
surprised if it be taken by assault. It 
is a burning shame if the confessors of 
Christ manifest less of interest, ardor 
and sacrifice in standing up for His 
cause, than those exhibit who are bent 
on overthrowing it. At present, not 
only do Christians seem not to be suffi- 
ciently awake to the danger, but they 
are allowing to the enemy almost a 
monopoly of zeal and enthusiasm. One 
can not but admire the patient, tireless 
study and microscopical investigation 
which extremely latitudinarian critics are 
giving to every book of the Bible. The 
most difficult secrets of history are ex- 
plored. The most improbable and im- 
possible hypotheses are formulated. Ev- 
ery conceivable literary outfit is brought 
into play. Money is expended with the 
most lavish liberality. The press is used 
with unparalleled energy, and these nega- 
tive views are circulated far and wide. 
They are touching and influencing every 
channel of current thought. Especially 
is the effort made to popularize them, to 
present them in such attractive guise as 
to win the ear and gain the mind of the 
public. The situation reminds one of a 
witticism of Henry Ward Beecher. In 
the hall of the Twin Mountain House in 
the White Mountains, where he spent his 
vacations, he observed a painting which 
represented a huge mastiff asleep, with 
a fine piece of meat between his paws, 
which an agile little cur is quietly and 
dexterously getting away with. “This 
scene,’ humorously remarked Beecher, 
“fitly represents the conservatives and 
the radicals in religion. While the mas- 
sive watch-dogs of orthodoxy are se- 
curely asleep, the vigilant poodles of 
destructive thought are stealing away 


the faith from the hearts of the people.” 
Still, there is no peril, if we but do our 
duty, for God is on this side of Zion and 
its loyal servants. But the holy treas- 
ure of our faith can only be preserved by 
the fidelity, the learning, the mental ef- 
fort and activity of its defenders. Chris- 
tians must be awake to the emergency. 
They must think, must read, must have 
an intelligent acquaintance with the ques- 
tions at issue, and must be quite as able 
to repel, as others are to assail. They 
must call for and liberally support evan- 
gelical publications. It is but by thus 
contending earnestly for the faith once 
delivered to the saints that it can be 
maintained inviolate. And evincing this 
vigilance and putting on the whole pan- 
oply of God, no one need have the least 
doubt or tremor as to the final issue. 
The Bible, Christianity and the Church 
will come forth from this crisis triumph- 
ant as from every other. 

What, in a word, will be the practical 
effect, if by our failure to recognize the 
fact that Christianity is on trial in this 
attack, we do not meet it with timely, 
energetic resistance? 

The authority of the Bible will be 
weakened, in fact, practically destroyed. 
-Its spiritual authority rests upon the 
fact that it stands unique in literature. 
Other books and moral writings are the 
product of the natural human mind. But 
the Bible claims to be given by men su- 
pernaturally inspired to know the will 
and truth of God. The extreme higher 
criticism explains the Bible by the same 
natural process by which merely human 
writings have arisen. It is absurd to 
contend that when the Bible’s unique 
basis of authority has been thus removed 
it can any more wield the supreme in- 
fluence over the consciences of men it 
has had all through the centuries. 

It is indeed the satire of logic to al- 
lege that the more a foundation is un- 
dermined the more secure the building 
is made; that the more a wall is riddled 
and battered down, the stronger it be- 
comes as a bulwark of defense; that the 
more a narrative is proven to be a tis- 
sue of myth, legend and fable, the more 
authentic it becomes as genuine, sober 


36 


history; and that the more the Bible is ~ 


shown to be a patchwork of falsehoods, 
pretended miracles and pious frauds, the 
more it will be looked up to as a moral 
code, demanding respect and obedience. 

Again, the cardinal tenets of Christian- 
ity will be swept away. These destruc- 
tive attacks at first were merely aimed 
at the verbal inspiration of Scripture. 
But from the form it was a short step to 
the substance. Says Harnack: “Jesus 
does not belong to the Gospel”—meaning 
that the Church’s Jesus, the divine 
Christ, is not there. Cheyne repudiates 
the atonement. Henry Preserved Smith 
denies the resurrection. And so, one 
after another of the pillars of the edifice 
of evangelical Christianity is dragged 
down. This result Canon Henson has 
already reached, for he tells us that ev- 
ery supernatural fact and doctrine of the 
New Testament must go. 

Further, the foundations of morality 
will be impaired. Ethics that do not 
rest upon religion are unable to check 
immorality and sin, Remove the super- 
natural sanctions given by a personal 
God, immortality and future judgment, 
which are found in the Bible only, and 
there is no adequate deterrent from 
wrongdoing, no sufficient motive to men 
to choose duty to the sacrifice of pleas- 
ure. 

Finally, irreparable harm will be done 
to those outside of Christianity. The 
most potent argument to draw men to 
the Church is the authority of the Word 
of God. But when Christians no longer 
accord the Bible this place, why should 
the world trouble itself about it? What 
is it to them then, more than any other 
book? In practical effect, then, these 
so-called modern views and this New 
Theology, so far from pouring new light 
on the Bible, flood it with darkness, and, 
displacing this venerable volume from 
its seat as the bed rock of religion, mor- 
ality and civilization, will turn the world 
backward on its axis to the dark ages of 
history. 

Let, then, Christians everywhere be 
aroused to the crucial nature of the 
struggle. And standing in impregnable 
phalanx for the Word of God and the 


altar of our faith, as did the saints and 
fathers of old, we will win a victory 


which will make epochal our age by one 


more of those great triumphs which 
shine like mighty sea marks along the 
shore of Christian history. 





President Hall: Among the organizers 
of’ The American Bible League, and 
among those who have for years prayed 
that God might stir up His people to 
some definite organized action along the 


line of campaign that is represented by 
this Convention, I can give the name of 
the one who is now to address us, the 
pastor of this Church, our much-beloved 
friend, Rev, Dr. David James Burrell. 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. BURRELL 


“Preachers and the Dictionary”’ 


I observe that a good many of the 
speakers have had something good to 
say of the Bible, but there is one book 
that is being seriously neglected, and I 
should like in making reference to the 
practical consequences of Destructive 
Criticism to pay my very reverential res- 
pects to that other book. The Bible is 
the Gibraltar of the Church, it is true; 
but, good people, the Bible would not 
mean anything to us if it were not for 
another book, which is in sore danger by 
reason of Destructive Criticism in these 
days. I mean the dictionary. I speak 
now for the dictionary. I am not a bit 
afraid for the Bible; I am afraid for the 
other book. I am not here to save the 
Bible from danger. God forbid! On 
last St. Patrick’s Day, when the proces- 
sion was coming up here on the avenue, 
a little girl with her pet dog was down 
below, and the mother was up in the 
window above, and they were watching 
the procession. The dog got into a 
great nervous fury, and was barking and 
running, and the little girl was greatly 
troubled, and she called out, “Mother, 
come quick! Jip is going to bite the 
army!” JI am not worrying about the 
army. The Bible can take care of itself; 
but I am worried about the book that is 
back of the Bible. It is losing its defi- 
nitions in these days. 

Now, in all seriousness, brethren, I 
reckon among the most calamitous re- 
sults of the metaphysical speculations 
that have been pursued by our friends 
upon the other side of the Biblical dis- 
cussion in these last days, the complete 
overturning of definitions. That is one 


37 


of the bad things that has come out of 
it. Now, words mean something. Words 
ought to mean something. It is im- 
mensely important that we preachers, 
when we stand in the pulpit, should 
define things, and stand by the defini- 
tion of things. A man who counter- 
feited a coin in Great Britain in the 
olden times, paid the penalty with his 
life; counterfeiting was death. To utter 
a spurious word deliberately is vastly 
more calamitous than to utter a spurious 
coin. 

When a man stands in this place, or- 
dained by God Almighty to stand here, 
and speak the truth in the name of the 
Christ of Truth, he is bound to stand by 
his Bible and by the definitions and 
terms given in the dictionary with res- 
pect to the great doctrines which are 
outlined in the Word of God. 

A friend of mine went up to Boston, 
Dr. Plumb, a little while ago, and heard 
one of your ministers who is a very 
bright man, and a warm friend of mine, 
and who is so far off that I don’t know 
whether he believes he wears shoes or 
not. But I do know my friend came 
back and said to me, “I never heard 
such an orthodox sermon as that was!” 
Now, in point of fact, if he had known 
the man as I did, he would have known 
that he had a dictionary of his own. 

Now, I say there is a whole line of 
important words, and practically they 
are the words that make the entire 
chain of terminology in Christian doc- 
trine, and this whole list of technical 
words is being used in one way by men 
who are loyal to the Scriptures, and 


by men on the other side of this 
controversy in a totally and fundamen- 
tally different way. Inspiration, Atone- 
ment, Vicarious, Resurrection, even Im- 
mortality, all these words are used in 
undictionary ways. Men are using them 
in the pulpit and explaining away the 
significance of the doctrines they were 
intended to designate. They are doing 
it all the while, and the people do not 
know it, and they sit in the pews and 
think that the pastors believe in these 
things. 

Now what is the consequence? 

The result is disastrous to common 
honesty and to our confidence in human 
nature, and it is thus around the whole 
circumference of our ecclesiastical life. 

And not only words such as I have in- 
dicated, technical words, are twisted, put 
on the rack and twisted, tortured until 
they scream out things that neither the 
Bible nor the dictionary ever meant they 
should, but untechnical words as well. 
Take that little word “is.’ You would 
think everybody knew what is means; 
yet there are men who are preaching the 
gospel of Jesus Christ who do not know 
its meaning, but are using it in outré 
and outlandish and lawless ways. I say 
the Bible is the Word of God, and I want 
to mean it; but I do not know a man on 
the other side who would not say “the 
Bible is the Word of God.” But what 
does he mean by is? He has got a little 
stock of reserves at his back when he 
says “is.’ He means only that there 
are some things in the Bible which are 
true and which, like all other truth in 
the world’s literature, came from God. 
In point of fact he regards the Book as 
largely false, involving no end of in- 
credible fables and legends, made up 
considerably of forged documents, teach- 
ing frequent error in both doctrine and 
ethics. If he really holds that opinion, 
why, in the name of common honesty, 
does he not say so? If he means that 
the Bible merely contains a modicum of 
truth why should he say “is” rather than 
“contains?” He is bound to speak so 
that the people shall not misunderstand 
him. 

He is turning aside from the tradi- 


38 


tional use of the word, and he is bound to 
say so. I would say to the best friend 
I have on the other side: he must explain 
if he is using the word in an ozt- 
landish way. “IS the Word of God’— 
does he mean that? Brethren, he does 
not mean what the people think him to 
be saying, at all. I can convict him 
right here and now. Bring me a hun- 
dred books, a hundred books that are ac- 
cepted by the public as books of general- 
ly acknowledged truth: Macaulay’s His- 
tory, Green’s, all the other histories—piie 
them up here; and books of science, books 
of common philosophy—pile them up—a 
hundred books. Let the Bible be the 
hundredth book. Now, I will call be- 
fore you the man who represents the 
Destructive Criticism of which we are 
speaking today, and by all that is holy in 
truth, that man is bound to say that the 
one-hundredth book there has certainly 
less of truth in it than any book of all 
the other ninety and nine! It is not only 
not the best of books by all the canons 
of common judgment; it is the worst 
and least trustworthy of them all! And 
yet, they will say to you without a lift- 
ing of the eyebrows, without a word of 
reservation or of qualification, “The 
Bible is true.” “Oh, yes, the Bible is 
the Word of God.” Now, you see they 
have turned the thing topsy-turvy. “Is” 
means “is not,’ doesn’t it? I say that 
is not honest. 

There naturally follows from this ety- 
mological confusion the demoralization 
of the ministers themselves. It is record- 
ed that in the period of Roman deca- 
dence the priests, as they ministered at 
the altars, smiled in each others’ faces, to 
think how easily they were deceiving the 
people. Their level of common morality 
was no lower than that of the Chris- 
tian minister who leads his congregation 
in repeating, “I believe in Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, who was conceived by 
the Holy Ghost,” while privately affirm- 
ing, “It is nothing to me whether Jesus 
was begotten by the Holy Ghost or by 
Joseph of Nazareth.” In such cases the 
fine edge of honesty has worn off, and 
manly courage has gone with it. 

Now, do you begin to see that the dic- 


tionary is oi some consequence? It 
makes a difference how men trifle with 
definitions. That is a far-reaching cal- 
amity that comes from this Destructive 
Criticism. It was born in the fact that 
men were timid at the first in anouncing 
their conclusions, and it lingers still be- 
cause they know that the great multi- 
tude of the people who sit in the pews 
are loyal to the Word of Ged. 

A second result of this sinister use of 
historic and well-defined words and 
phrases is seen in a diminishing attend- 
ance at church. Preachers who believe 
and affirm their convicticns without 
mumbling or mouthing usually have no 
difficulty in getting a hearing. But the 
times are too earnest and strenuous for 
a meaningless theology. Men and wo- 
men are too busy in these days to trouble 
themselves with “ifs” and “perhapses;” 
and they have too much common sense 
to listen to preachers whose vocabulary 
can not be depended on. 
clines when Bank-note Reporters have to 
be used to determine the value of com- 
mon currency. So it has come about 
that, in certain portions of our country 
where this kind of preaching prevails, 
the Sabbath services are thinly attend- 
ed and not infrequently churches are 
abandoned altogether. I can go, my 
dear Dr. Plumb, up into some portions 
of New England with which I am thor- 
oughly familiar, and find you churches 
there filled with void because Ichabod 
is written over the archway and the con- 
gregation with the glory has departed. 
That is true, isn’t it? 

I know what some of you ministers are 
giving them there, and it is not con- 
fined to New England. Why should the 
people come to hear a man cast reflec- 
tions upon the truth of the Word of 
God, air his doubts and add to the 
misgivings of the individual man, when 
God knows that he has enough of his 
own? He does not need to go to church 
for that. Give the people truth and they 
will come. The churches where God’s 
Truth is being ministered are not lament- 
ing today over the loss of a congrega- 
tion. I say that deliberately and I mean 
it. The average business men—and I 


Commerce de-_ 


speak to busy men, and wives who are 
cumbered with much serving, too—and 
we have reached an age in the history 
of the world when they are too busy in 
the hurly-burly of life to go anywhere 
to hear ifs and perhapses, or loose 
phrases about anything—they want a 
man to stand up in the pulpit and if he 
has any convictions, utter them squarely 
in plain English, and without indirec- 
tion. You won’t go to this church or any 
other church to hear a man propound 
conundrums and hypotheses to you. O, 
man, on the road to the Judgment Bar 
of God, don’t waste your time that 
way! Get out of the church where you 
hear only the sermon of a man who does 
not believe the gospel he preaches, or is 
explaining away by the use of false 
phrases or misused words the truth 
which he is in covenant bound to preach 
to the people. The people understand. 
The reason why they are not going to 
some churches is because what Lincoln 
said is true, “You can trust the people, 
they are not fools.” 

A third result is seen in the lack of 
candidates for the ministry. There are 
Theological Seminaries, where a nega- 
tive or destructive criticism is taught, 
that have to beat the woods for students. 
And why not? Why should a youth de- 
vote himself to a ministry that has no 
purpose but to ask unanswerable ques- 
tions or root up convictions in the souls 
of men? The Seminaries that teach pos- 
itive truth, while not wholly unaffected 
by the general sentiment, are numerously 
attended by as earnest and able a body 
of students as ever devoted themselves 
to the service of Christ; but, as to the 
total list of candidates, there is a con- 
siderable falling off. And again I ask, 
Why not? What, in the name of youth- 
ful zeal and holy ambition, has a nega- 
tive or equivocal ministry to offer a 
young man? Why should he consecrate 
his life to tearing things down and throw- 
ing things overboard? Or, more import- 
ant still, why should he deliberately set 
eut to preach doctrines which are dis- 
counted, in words twisted out of their 
usual sense? The average young man is 
rational. Give him something worth 


doing and he will hasten to the task; 
but the glory of youth revolts against the 
thought of beating the air. 

But, though I thus speak, I have no 
misgivings as to the final outcome. Nei- 
ther the Bible nor the dictionary is in 
any real danger. The “Impregnable 
Rock of Holy Scripture” will stand, like 
Gibraltar, when the wreckage of the hos- 
tile fleet is scattered on every side. The 
prime purpose of the Bible League is 
neither offensive nor defensive; it is in- 
tended to be a fellowship of people who 
are like-minded as to the trustworthiness 
of Scripture and the positiveness of the 
truths contained in it. We believe in the 
Bible as the Written Word and in Christ 


as the Incarnate Word of God; and, in 
saying that, we employ words in their 
usual sense, have no desire to qualify, 
and we mean precisely what we say. It 
is‘a goodly company. “Blest be the 
tie that binds!” The work of defend- 
ing the Scriptures is merely incidental 
to the real purpose of the organization 
as I understand it. We propose to lend 
ourselves to the positive and constructive 
teaching of the vital truths of our re- 
ligion as set forth in the Scriptures. Our 
desire is not to tear down but to build 
up; not to instil doubts but to strengthen 
faith; and in all things to buttress our 
teachings with the ultimate authority of 
the Word of God. 





President Hall: In closing this morn- 
ing’s session of the Convention, we are 
to have the privilege of listening to the 
testimonies of some of the most dis- 
tinguished men in this country, as we 
have listened to such men in the ad- 
dresses already delivered this morn- 
ing. They will speak briefly and right 
to the point, as they always do, and I 
am sure that all of you who remain for the 
few moments they are to occupy will be 


glad that you remained. I trust that 
you will bring with you this afternoon 
as many of your friends as you can pos- 
sibly induce to come. 

It gives me great pleasure to intro- 
duce the Rev. Robert Russell Booth, 
D.D., LL.D., of this city, Pastor Emeri- 
tus of the Rutgers Riverside Presbyter- 
ian Church, and ex-Moderator of the 
Presbyterian General Assembly, who will 
now address us. 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ROBERT RUSSELL BOOTH 
‘““The Claim of a ‘Consensus’ of the Scholars’”’ 


I have so much respect for the breth- 
ren who are to speak after me that I 
shall be very brief in what I have to 
say. The subject has been so presented 
from different points of view, in the 
services of last evening and this morn- 
ing, that as to the substance hardly any- 
thing that is novel can be said. Yet there 
are always personal impressions; and 
the experience and convictions of one 
who has seen this evil growing on this 
ground for fifteen years, and who has 
faced it, and who has suffered in the 
process, entitles him at least to utter a 
word of thanks that this League has 
been established, and that it is here to 
stay. 

I have been for a very long time in 
the service of the Presbyterian Church 
here in New York. The contemporaries 
of my early ministry were men like Dr. 


40 


Phillips [to Chairman Hall], your grand- 
father, who, compared with many that 
are now upon this field, were as giants 
unto pigmies; and I can imagine what a 
sense of horror would have filled those 
men if they had foreseen the things that 
have been said and done by some among 
us in respect of the Holy Scriptures. 
What I would say briefly concerns 
what I hope to be the clear outcome of 
this Bible League. I hope that in its 
future activity, in the first place, it will 
be enabled to dispel the ignus fatuus of 
a “consensus” on the side of the Des- 
tructive Criticism. Now, this is a thing 
that has not been said here by any of our 
brethren, and it is perhaps the most im- 
portant thing to have said. The “con- 
sensus,” imagined, fictitious, unreal, of 
scholarship in regard to these views, is 
the dark cloud that has hung over us 


from the beginning. There is no such 
“consensus;” and yet the people do not 
realize that this is the fact. They have 
been misled by the journalists, who are 
always ready to present criticisms and 
objections as if they had been proven. 
Almost every one gives the impression 
that the scholarship is all on the side 
of the Destructive Critics, and yet 
when we rank up in line, man by man, 
taking for example, the published list of 
the adherents of this League, I will say 
that among the men who have thought 
and studied most deeply, and who can 
claim to be in a comprehensive sense, 
Christian “scholars,” there are five to 
one in this country against the Destruc- 
tive Criticism. 

The ablest thinker that I knew in my 
early and mature life was President Ju- 
lius Seelye, of Amherst College, the best 
able to formulate a proposition that had 
to do with a question of evidence. We 
were students together. As he was near- 
ing the close of the voyage of life, he 
said to me: “I have spent two years on 
this subject, and I find the evidence is 
utterly inadequate to sustain the alle- 
gation.” And yet we are constantly con- 
fronted by those who are so positive in 
their assertions that they remind us of 
the famous edict that was issued from 
Threadneedle Street by the Nine Tailors, 
“We, the People of England!” We may 
safely put up against the writings of 
Wellhausen and the recent works of De- 
litzsch the works of Prof. Fritz Hommel, 
and that masterly work of Frank Moller, 
published by Revell, which is an abso- 
lutely decisive weapon against the new 
Deuteronomic theory. We cite as against 
men like Driver and Cheyne, a name 
that is hardly ever mentioned among us, 
the oldest Hebrew scholar in Great 
Britain, Dr. Stanley Leathes, who has 
utterly demolished, on the ground of ver- 
bal comparison, the claim of the Two 
Isaiahs; and as against .George Adam 
Smith we name such a man as John Ur- 
quhart; and, even in this country far and 
wide, the silent scholars that have not 
yet been counted. We expect that they 
will be counted before the verdict is 
reached. These men have been quietly 
resting, not realizing that there was such 


4t 


an emergency upon the Church of God. 

I say then that the first thing is to 
show that weight of scholarship is in 
favor of the traditional view, the only 
view that is credible, because it is in no 
other way possible in history that such a 
method of construction of the Word of 
God should have been realized. 

I want also to have the people under- 
stand—and that has been brought out 
in this meeting—that it is the testimony 
of the Lord Jesus Christ that is im- 
peached in this crisis, and the point of 
my assertion is this: four hundred times 
as Bishop Ellicott has shown, the Oid 
Testament is cited with the approval of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. If He was by a 
kenotic process emptied of His knowl- 
edge in respect to so plain a subject as 
His Father’s Book, upon which He tes- 
tified, what value has His assertive 
knowledge on any subject whatsoever? 
If, however,—as was said by one of the 
professors in an institution on the neigh- 
boring hill—the critics will frankly tell 
us that H'e did not know, then I say, 
What did He know? If He was ignorant 
of knowledge which in that age was 
within the range of ordinary human 
faculties, how shall He tell us of things 
divine and eternal? And how did He 
know that God so loved the world that 
He gave His only Begotten Son? I tell 
you, brethren, that when Jesus Christ 
has been thus discredited, the very be- 
ing of a gracious God has been obscured; 
for Nature tells nothing of the love of 
God. I am afraid of Nature; I tremble 
at its convulsions. I am overwhelmed 
at the confusion that everywhere reigns 
around us. It is, in many of its aspects, 
a world of gloom and pain and death, 
and it is only Jesus, the Resurrection 
and the Life, the Brightness of the Fa- 
ther’s Glory, that has taught Christen- 
dom that there is a God of Grace and 
Mercy, who forgiveth sin. Now, let it be 
understood that it is the very being of 
God as God, and the Father of our Lord 
and Savior, Jesus Christ, that is in- 
volved in this controversy; for in im- 
peaching His testimony in regard to 
common things, He is discredited at ev- 
ery point. : 

One thing more, and that is the ques- 


tion of honesty. We are living in a time 
that to old-fashioned men seems perilous. 
There are scenes and transactions in the 
financial world that are simply appalling 
in contrast with the standards of forty 
and fifty years since. And there has 
come over the ministry of the Church in 
many quarters a sentiment of conceal- 
ment and repression which is as a taint 
upon character, and which justifies the 
suspicion of the people that the minis- 
ters do not mean just what they say 
when they speak of the threatenings of 
the Word of God. Here, for instance, 
is an illustration: there is in this city a 
minister—whether he is an Episcopalian, 
Methodist, or Presbyterian, does not 
matter—who confessed that when he 
used the Apostles’ Creed he did it with 
mental reservation, saying to himself, 
when he came to the words “Jesus Christ 
who was born of the Virgin Mary,” “as 
they say,” and applying the same inter- 
polation at the words “rose from the 
dead.” Brethren, a man who can do 
that has set his foot in the way of hell! 
That is blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost! I trust that there are but few 
such; and yet Canon Freemantle did not 
hesitate about a year ago, in a conven- 
tion of the clergy of the Church of En- 
gland, to declare that he disbelieved in 
the Virgin Birth; and yet the next day he 
recited the Apostles’ Creed! 

Can we wonder that crime has ap- 
peared in the community, and that men 
find excuse for easy virtue, when the 
very teachers of the righteousness of 
God are willing to descend to such con- 
cealment? 

I would ask you also to realize that 
this attack comes upon us, not from 
without, but from within. For nineteen 
centuries the Church of God has been 
a Warrior Church. Through controversy 
and through conflict it has come up out 
of the wilderness leaning on the arm of 
the Beloved. But, here today in the 
very midst of us, is a condition of trea- 
son; and it is a treason that is using the 
resources of the Church, the salaries of 
her ministers, and the sacred endow- 
ments established by the sainted ones 
who are now in the presence of God. 
What honest man can look at Andover 


42 


and not be ashamed that such things 
should be possible? And when we think 
of those who have endowed our semin- 
aries, who have wrung oftentimes from 
their poverty the sums by which they 
have been enabled to make their gifts, 
and realize that some of these imstitu- 
tions are consecrated to the destruction 
of that which they were intended to up- 
build; then we feel that the emergency 
that is upon us is altogether unlike that 
of the continuous conflict of the Church 
of God with foes that are avowedly such. 
Celsus and Porphyry, Bolingbroke and 
Rousseau, Thomas Paine and Robert In- 
gersoll,_they have called for no Bible 
League, for they are enemies outside our 
lines; and they have gone to their own 
place, and no one reads their books. But 
when we have to do with those who are 
questioning about the Old Testament 
and the New, about Jesus Christ Him- 
self, deceiver or deceived, then we feel 
that the time has come for the Church 
to realize that these are not friends, but 
enemies, that are in the midst of us. 

And we shall stand in all fidelity to 
this work that we have thus begun. The 
world will not love this Bible. The world 
will not love the Christ of the atoning 
sacrifice; but if the time should come 
when the Presbyterian ministry becomes 
degenerate and unworthy, and when the 
Methodist and the Baptist cease to pro- 
claim the old doctrine of expiation and 
redemption, then we shall find that, sad 
as it may be, there will be a mighty tide 
of human souls that will hasten, if no 
other way is seen, to the old historic 
Church, in spite of all that there is cor- 
rupt therein, and that Roman Catholic 
Church, that has. been faithful to the 
Word of God, notwithstanding all that 
she has added to it, would be the last 
refuge of despair. But this will not be 
the outcome of the conflict. We expect 
the triumphant on-going of this work; 
we expect to enroll on our list of mem- 
bers Archbishop Farley, because his 
Church and he stand for the Bible; we 
expect and confidently call upon Bishop 
Potter, whose church establishes its 
Scripture lessons for every day and ey- 
ery Sabbath from the Old Testament 
and the New, to which they are solemn- 











ly pledged,—we expect that they will 
join in some sense this movement; and 
that all-these evangelical leaders, with 
the multitude of the church who are pre- 
paring to stand on High in the blood- 
washed throng, will be with us in heart 


and spirit, if not by the actual enrollment 
of their names. Let us remember that 
the power of God will be our strength in 
this movement, and that it is our simple 
purpose to uphold the Word of God that 
liveth and abideth forever. 





President Hall: The last of the speak- 
ers at this session is the Rev. William 
T. Sabine, D.D., Bishop of the Reformed 


ADDRESS OF 


Mr. Chairman and Fellow Christian 
Friends: The time for lunch has come 
and we are all pretty tired after this 
feast of reason and this flow of soul, 
which have been most delightfully encour- 
aging and edifying; and so I feel sure 
that the best thing for me to do now is 
just to offer a little prayer that I have 
always prized in our Liturgy, a prayer 
for the Bible that is very precious to us 
all. I- would like to say much, but I 
will just say how glad I am to look into 
the faces of so many true friends of the 


President Hiall: In concluding this 
session I would invite your attention 
to the program for the afternoon 
session. Remember that the session be- 
gins promptly at half-past two. The 
topic is “Groundlessness of the Present 
Rationalistic Claims.” The first special 
topic is “The Identity of the Present 
Views with Those Propagated One Hun- 
dred Years Ago.” The second special 
topic is “The Uncritical Character of the 
Present Application of the Rationalistic 
Principles to the New Testament.” Upon 
the first special topic we shall have an 
address by Prof. Howard Osgood, D.D., 
LL.D., of the Rochester Theological 
Seminary, ex-Member of the American 
Bible Revision Committee. Upon the 
second special topic, Chicago will be 
heard from in an address by Reverend R. 
F. Weidner, D.D., LL.D., President of 
the Theological Seminary of the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church of Chicago. Af- 


43 


Episcopal Church, and Rector of the 
First Reformed Episcopal Church of 
this City, who will now address us. 


BISHOP SABINE 


old Bible, who stand fast and firm for 
the Book in its integrity. Now, let us 
pray: 

“Blessed Lord, who hast caused the 
Holy Scriptures to be written for our 
learning, grant that we may in such wise 
hear them, read, mark, learn and inward- 
ly digest them, that by the patience and 
comfort of Thy Hloly Word, we may 
embrace and ever hold fast that blessed 
hope of everlasting life, which Thou hast 
given in Thy Son, our Savior, Jesus 
Christ. Amen.” 


ter that, Prof. Edmund J. Wolf, D.D., 
LL.D., and Prof. Jesse D. Thomas, D.D., 
LL.D., and Rev. Edward P. Ingersoll, 
D.D., Secretary of the American Bible 
Society, will address us. Now you see 
we have a very attractive program, 
and I trust that not only those who are 
present this morning will find it conven- 
ient to be present this afternoon, but 
many others. 

I would like also to announce that the 
Rev. Dr. George C. Lorimer, who was to 
have addressed us this morning, has been 
detained by the illness of his wife. 

The devotional exercises will now be 
conducted, as the other devotional exer- 
cises have been, by Rev. Dr. Burrell. 

Dr. Burrell: Sing Hymn No. 84, the 
last two verses: 


“Word of the everlasting God, 
Will of His glorious Son.” 


Benediction by Rev. Dr. Burrell. 


Third General Topic 


“GROUNDLESSNESS OF THE PRESENT RATIONALISTIC 
CLAIMS” 


WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON SESSION, MAY 4 


3 P. M. President William Phillips Hall in the Chair 


Dr. Burrell: Let us sing No. 77, 
“T love the volume of Thy word.” 


Let us turn to Psalm cxix. Read res- 
ponsively. 

Rey. Dr. Wilson Phraner will lead us 
in prayer, 

Prayer by Dr. Phraner: Almighty God, 
our Heavenly Father, we invoke Thy 
presence, and the guidance of Thy good 
Spirit as again we are assembled in this 
place to meditate upon Thy precious 
truth, in sympathy with its teachings, and 
to testify of our appreciation of the pre- 
ciousness of its revelation. We give Thee 
thanks for Thy Word, Thy Word of 
everlasting truth, revealing to us God 
and His Being, His character, His at- 
tributes, the principles of His govern- 
ment and the purposes of His grace. Es- 
pecially reveal to us Thy dear Son, our 
Savior, and Thy divine purpose through 
Him toward a world lying in sin and 
wickedness. We thank Thee for the rev- 
elation of the blessed Holy Spirit, whose 
office work it is to take of the things of 
Christ and reveal them unto us. Open 
our minds and hearts more and more to 
receive the instructions of Thy precious 
Word. We thank Thee for all the peace, 
all the joy, all the comfort, all the hope 
which Thy Word has brought to us in our 
lives. We thank Thee that we may rest 
upon it with confidence and rejoice in 
it as the truth of God, abiding evermore. 
And now direct in all the discussions of 
the hour. In all that is said may Thy 
Word be honored. May Thy name be 
glorified. May cur minds be stored with 
Thy truth, our souls uplifted into sym- 
pathy with God and the purposes of His 
grace, and love for Jesus Christ. Bless 


+H 














us, everyone. Bless this organization, O 
God, and prosper it in the work on be- 
half of which Thy saints are banded to= 
gether, and lead in such manner by Thy 
Spirit that Thy servants shall indeed re 
alize that God is with them, going be- 
fore them and opening their way, and 
showing them the path of duty and of 
privilege in Thy service. And to Thy 
name shall be the praise. Amen. q 
Dr. Burrell: Sing again No. 80 to the 
old tune of Uxbridge. Anyone who does 
not know Uxbridge wants to begin over 
again. e 
“The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord! 
In every star Thy wisdom shines.” ; 
President Hall: In opening this ses- 
sion of the Conference, I regret that we © 
are obliged to state that Rev. Dr. How 


bd 


ard Osgood, who hoped to address us ~ 
at this time, is unable, on account of the 
frail condition of his health, to be pres- 
ent; but we are not to be disappointed — 
in the message he was to bring us. He 
sent that on, and I have asked Dr. Greg- 
ory, the General Secretary of the League, — 
if he will not kindly read it. Professor 
Osgood is known throughout the world, © 
as a former Professor in Rochester The-— 
ological Seminary, ex-Member of the 
American Revision Committee, and an 
associate of the late Professor Thayer, © 
and Professors Charles M. Mead and 
George E. Day in the preparation of the 
American Standard Revised Version. I 
am sure that we shall be most intensely 
interested in the message from this 
mighty man of God, this great student 
of God’s Holy Word, and this great ex- 
pert in the original languages of the 
Scriptures. We will now listen to the 
reading of his paper by Dr. Gregory. 







[Dr. Gregory: Allow me to say by way 
| of preface, that when Dr. Osgood found 
that his physician would not permit him 
to be present, he wrote that he had 
‘shortened his paper, boiling it down as 
much as possible, because he knew that 
a read paper does not hold the interest 
as does an address. He has given us a 
brief, and yet very conclusive, argument, 
: i proving his position absolutely.] 
Outside of experts the people know no- 
thing and care less for scholastic pro- 
'eesses. They wish only to know results. 
What the common sense results of much 
criticism of the Bible are today, we are 
‘told by professors, preachers, popular 
writers by scores. A Canon of West- 
minster and a popular preacher in Lon- 
_don tells us in The Contemporary Re- 
view, that the Old Testament has lost 
all influence because of “the absurdities 
and moral crudities,” “the incredible, 
puerile or demoralizing narratives,” and 
_ that the New Testament “will have to go 
the way of the Old Testament prodi- 
| gies.” The only salvage from this wreck 
| will be the moral precepts. The most 
learned of the destructive critics in Scot- 
_ land teaches that the New Testament has 
no historical foundation. Men of Cam- 
bridge and Oxford and of equal sets of 
learning in our land certify to us that 
the Old and New Testaments contain 
a mass of fables, myths, legends. 
_ When we ask to see the proofs neces- 
Sitating these results we are told that 
they are: 

I. Historical and chronological. 

2. The constant contradictions found 
everywhere in the Old and New Testa- 
ments. - 





45 


First Special Topic. 
“EXPLODED THEORIES REVIVED TO BE AGAIN EXPLODED” 


PAPER OF REV. DR. HOWARD OSGOOD 


“The Identity of the Present Views with those Propagated One Hundred Years Ago”’ 


3. The disorderly arrangement of each 
book and of all the books. 

4. Evidences that the books were not 
written by the authors assigned to them 
and long after the times narrated. 

5. The low morality in precept and 
practice and the low view of God. 

6. The incredible claims made for Je- 
sus Christ, His birth, miracles, resurrec- 
tion and deity. 

These proofs are said to be the out- 
come of the present day applications of 
the true canons of historical and literary 
criticism, the fruit of a late advanced 
scholarship that is now a science. With 
these new evidences before it, we are 
told, modern reason and philosophy can 
no longer hold the Bible to be the Word 
of God. That this is the much vaunted 
modern view taught by learned men in 
Europe, Great Britain and America, is 
too well known to need the superabund- 
ance of references ready to prove it. 

Let us look back one hundred years. 
Our country had just come out of its 
long sufferings in the war with England. 
A series of changes had for more than 
a century been turning many ministers 
and churches from their earlier purity 
of doctrines and life. The revivals led 
by Whitefield from Maine to Georgia, 
through thirty years, had separated the 
churches of all denominations into those 
that favored and those that opposed 
evangelistic efforts. The long French 
war and the Revolution had turned the 
thoughts of the people to the desperate 
needs and sufferings, the wild passions 
aroused by conflicts. To be our friend 
when our fortunes were darkest was the 
title to unbounded gratitude and influ- 
ence. 


We had two such friends. Thomas 
Paine came to us from England with a 
recommendation from Benjamin Frank- 
lin, and in the well-nigh hopeless first 
years of the Revolution he stirred the 
country and nerved it to the pledge of 
all its resources by his popular writ- 
ings. France by her help enabled us to 
win victory, and for twenty years, in- 
cluding the time of her own revolution, 
the influence of France, her ways, her 
thoughts, her writers, was pre-eminent 
in the United States. So great was that 
influence that it blinded men, otherwise 
sane, to the tyranny and murders and 
banishment of all religion by the French 
revolutionists. Americans wore the. tri- 
color and sang popular songs to the 
glory of France and to the reviling of 
Washington. The great popular and sci- 
entific writers of France were the teach- 
ers of Europe and were to a man the 
outspoken foes of the Bible. Their works 
were largely read and accepted in Amer- 
ica as the best exponents of the latest 
science and literature. How far their in- 
fluence reached is shown by the fact that 
students in college called themselves Vol- 
taire, Diderot, d’Alembert, etc., and less 
than one in a hundred in Harvard, Yale, 
Williams and Princeton were willing to 
profess themselves Christians. 

Thomas Paine the friend of America 
went to France and from the centre of 
her revolution, in 1794-6, wrote and dedi- 
cated and sent by thousands to America 
his “Age of Reason.” It had immense 
vogue for a time and was spread from 
Maine to Georgia, from Massachusetts 
to Kentucky, commended by Paine’s 
reputation as a friend to America. The 
boys in the barns read and believed in 
it. The strength of the book was in its 
plain, vigorous, often coarse English, 
level to the common understanding, its 
apparent earnestness and the clear state- 
ment without any evasion or dissimula- 
tion of his conclusions. These conclu- 
sions follow quick upon his premises. 
This small work is the shortest, strong- 
est popular display of reasons for re- 
jecting the whole Bible as “fabulous and 
false” that had ever appeared. That 
which gave the book its strength at first 


46 


brought it many republications through 


the century until within a few years, 


since which it has been published in a 
splendid edition and praised by its edi- 
tor as one of the great books of the 
world. ‘. 

The method Paine follows is the appli- 
cation of what he thinks the simple rules 
of history, literature and science to the 
contents of the Bible. And the points 
he makes against the Bible are: 

1. The “historical and chronological” 
evidence.’ pp. 97-100, 105, III, II9. 

2. The “contradictions” found every- 
where, pp. 42, 105, 113, 134-6, 153-175, 222. 

3. The “disorderly arrangement,” pp. 
oof, 119, 120f, 156, 222. 

4. The books were not written by the 
authors assigned to them, pp. 93, 104-106, 
156-168, but long after the times nar- 
rated, pp. 41, 93, 109, I11, 156f, 16af. 

5. The low morality and the ascription 
to God of wicked and unjust words 
and deeds, pp. 90, 96, 103, 106, 113, 186- 
188. 

6. The incredible claims made for 
Christ, particularly as to His birth, His 
miracles, His resurrection, His deity, pp. 
77ff, 152-175, 417. 

Paine concludes that the Old Testa- 
ment is “a history of the grossest vices 
and a collection of the most paltry tales,” 
p. 38, and that the New Testament is 
full of “glaring absurdities, contradic- 
tions, falsehoods,” pp. 167, 192, and there- 
fore is “fabulous and false,” pp. 133, 153, 
4I0. 

Paine’s method and main points are 
identical with those of the destructive 
critics of the Bible today. In method and 
main points there has been no advance 
since 1796. There have been changes in 
mere externals but none in essentials. 
There is one advantage wholly on Paine’s 
side. He wrote so that he could not be 
misunderstood and he drew the only 
possible conclusion from his method and 
main points, that the whole Bible is a 
“pious fraud,” “spurious,” “an impos- 
ture,” and “a lie,” and that “I can write 
a better book myself,” p. 222. 

The night of infidelity and the influ- 





'The references are to Volume 4 of Paine’s writings, 
edit. of 1896. 


ence of Voltaire and Paine was swept 
away by the Spirit of God in a series of 
revivals of earnest faith and life in 
Christ. These began in 1792 and for 
forty years spread through all the States, 
bringing into activity the positive Chris- 
tian men and women who began and 
maintained missionary societies, Bible 
and Tract societies, Sunday Schools and 
all the decided works of faith and love 
to Christ that have grown with the cen- 
tury and have been our precious in- 
heritance. 

Paine’s book in 1796 taught nothing 
new. Any one who is acquainted with 
the learned and popular destructive crit- 
icism in England from Herbert to Hume, 
in Europe from Spinoza to Semler, in 
France from Rabelais to Voltaire, will 
see in Paine’s book nothing more than 
a strong, popular condensation of the 
same arguments employed by all those 
writers. Nor were these predecessors of 
Paine pioneers, for “The Three Impos- 
tors,” and Faustus and Julian and Por- 
phyry and a host of others in earlier 


centuries, had passed over the same 
ground and reached the same conclu- 
sions. Nor were these the first. The 
most sharp-witted and learned men in 
the Bible of their day confronted the 
Son of God and denied His teaching of 
the Old Testament, and His claim that 
He was the Son of God, the Christ, to be 
believed and honored equally with the 
Father; and they charged Him with be- 
ing a blasphemer, a servant of the devil, 
a deceiver, because being only a man He 
made Himself God. And on these grounds 
they condemned and crucified Him. The 
twenty-seven accusations against Christ 
by the chief priests and learned scribes 
cover the whole possible range of des- 
tructive criticism of the Bible and of 
Christ. From that day no really new 
unbelief has been invented. The for- 
tress defines the lines of attack. As 
the essential lines of the strategy of 
war have always been the same, the 
essential lines of destructive attack on 
the Bible remain the same, old as 
Eden. 





President Hall: As the subject dis- 
cussed by Professor Wolf falls into line 
with that treated by Dr. Osgood, I shall 
take the liberty of calling for it before 
the address of President Weidner, whose 
mame appears next on the program, but 
who is to discuss a different phase of the 


proposition before us. It gives me pleas- 
ure to introduce to you Professor Ed- 
mund J. Wolf, D.D., LL.D., of the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., and 
President of the Lutheran General Syn- 
od. Professor Wolf will now address 
you. 





ADDRESS OF REV. DR. EDMUND J. WOLF 


“The Tubingen Cyclone ” 


The Sacred Scriptures have weathered 
many a tempest. Sixty years ago they 
encountered a storm so fierce that timid 
minds listening to its roar almost gave 
up for lost the vessel which bears in its 
cabin our Lord and Savior. The waves 
of criticism threatened to engulf the 


47 


body of the New Testament. Ali the 
resources of historical learning, all the 
weapons of philological lore, all the im- 
plications of philosophical postulates, 
were combined for its destruction. The 
students, the experts, the specialists. the 
masters, all joined in decrying the tradi- 


tional acceptance of the earliest Chris- 
tian literature. And if some courageous 
Scribe still dared to believe in them, he 
at once became the target for ridicule. 
There was a consensus of critics, a rever- 
berating chorus of scholars. The attack 
on the Scriptures was all the rage-—for, 
be it remembered, the tyranny of fashion 
rules the world of learning as it does the 
world of dress. The Colossus of Tii- 
bingen bestriding all the world of Bibli- 
cal and historical learning set the pace, 
and lesser minds, as usual, aspired to be 
in distinguished company. If American 
scholars did not generally join the pro- 
cession, it was because America was not 
then so much given to foreign importa- 
tions. 

A bull of scholastic infallibility expur- 
gated everything from the New Testa- 
ment excepting four Epistles of St. Paul 
and the Book of Revelation, the former 
representing the anti-Jewish and liberal 
Christianity, of which Paul was regarded 
the founder, the latter representing the 
original Jewish and contracted Christian- 
ity propagated by Jesus and the Twelve. 

All other writings previously regarded 
_as the works of Holy Evangelists and 
Apostles were ascribed to a gang of 
counterfeiters, who blended the villainy 
of forgery with their spiritual unction. 
They were fabrications stamped with 
honored names for the purpose of secur- 
ing in the contemporary Church Apos- 
tolic sanction for their contents. They 
consisted, it was claimed, of unhistorical 
myths and legends, heretical romances, 
partisan manipulations, clumsy patch- 
work and clever redactions, having about 
as much basis of fact as may be found 
in a historical novel. 

To account for the origin of these 
forgeries and their reception as genuine 
Apostolic productions, the imagination 
of the critics audaciously invented a pe- 
culiar theory of the conditions of Primi- 
tive Christianity—not scrupling to at- 
tempt a reconstruction of Primitive 
Christian history. They assumed a fun- 
damental antagonism between the 
primeval Christian belief and the subse- 
quent Gentile type of Christianity; a 
radical difference between the early “Ju- 


48 


daic Socinianism” and the later doctrinal 
innovation which essentially changed this 
religion in heart and soul; a bitter hostil- 
ity between the party which adhered to 
Peter and the other original Apostles, 
and that which adhered to Paul and his’ 
universalistic claims. In the face of 
Galatians ii, conceded to be genuine, 
Paul’s Gospel was declared to be “an-' 
other Gospel, essentially different from,’ 
and fundamentally subversive of that 
which the Twelve had originally delivered 
as from the Lord;” and so determined 
was the opposition to this Gospel that a 
Counter-Mission was organized at Jeru- 
salem which came near ruining the work 
of Paul. 

The Pauline revolution, changing the 
original nature of Christianity, havinz 
for a second time gained the upper hand 
in the Christian community, 


“There grew into its mind an essen- 
tially mistaken view of the original his- 
tory of Christianity, which view em- 
bodied itself in our existing Scriptures, 
conformably to the revolutionary Pauline 
doctrine of the religion; so that the 
forged Scriptures and the reception of 
them by Christians all over the world, 
are accounted for by operation of that 
mistaken view.” (McGregor, “Hist. of 
N. T. Apologetics,” p. 229.) 


These documents, then, bearing the 
venerable names of Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, John, Paul, Peter and James were 
all resolved into “tendency writings.” 
They were not history pure and simple, 
but an adjustment of history to a doc- 
trinal and factional aim, in the interest 
of one or the other party, or of a com- 
promise between the two. They were 
pseudo-Apostolic tracts, exhibiting vari- 
ous phases of the supposed situation, 
some polemical, like the third Gospel, 
which emanating from the Pauline side 
distorted history in a way to favor the 
Gentile claims; some irenical, seeking to 
bridge the gulf between the two parties, 
like The Acts, which aims to harmonize 
Jewish and Gentile Christianity by liber- 
alizing Peter and Judaizing Paul, artfully 
concealing the differences between them, 

The fourth Gospel, an ideal composi- 
tion of some great unknown religious ge- 
nius, “completed with consummate skill 


the unifying process about the middle of 
the second century.” 

Out of such a subjective hodge-podge, 
exaggerating, distorting, manipulating, 
recasting and redacting Primitive Chris- 
tian history, a compound of fiction and 
fraud designed to further the views and 
aims of some theological party, grew the 
orthodoxy of the second and third cen- 
turies. 

This daring exploit of historical crit- 
icism was motived and ruled by precon- 
ceived scientific and philosophical theo- 
ries. Men denouncing the dogmatism of 
theologians treated the world to a spec- 
tacle of the dogmatism of critics, their 
arguments being primarily grounded on 
the negative prejudgments, that miracles 
are scientifically impossible, that revela- 
tion, prophecy, everything supernatural, 
is philosophically incredible. Nature is 
all; natural development accounts for all. 
Jehovah must keep hands off the system 
of things— this was the foundation as- 
sumption of the school which sought to 
discredit the oracles of revelation by mak- 
ing them infamous in their authorship. 

Baur followed the Hegelian Pantheism, 
“that in history there can be no real be- 
ginning, such as a miracle would involve; 
that in all seeming history there in fact 
is only an absolute continuity of evolu- 
tionary eventuation, with no such gap or 
break as would be constituted by inter- 
vention of a will or existence of a per- 
sonal free agent.” This determined 
avowedly his so-called historical criti- 
cism of Primeval Christianity and its rec- 
ords — “Atheistic metaphysics masquer- 
ading as a student of the Bible and its 
history”! 

Here is the true inwardness of the 
Tiibingen assault upon the New Testa- 
ment—the scientific conviction that any- 
thing supernatural is absolutely incred- 
ible, inducing an intellectual condition 
which incapacitates men for judging fair- 
ly as to the historical reality of anything 
claiming to be supernatural—the as- 
sumption of the impossibility of mira- 
cles smiting this school with intellectual 
blindness, disqualifying them for weigh- 
ing evidences in proof of alleged facts at 
variance with their prejudgments. 


49 


Such was the storm. And what of the 
result? A historical episode! A remin- 
iscence! Yea, the very memory of it has 
almost faded away. The fantastical hy- 
pothesis of villainous forgeries imposed 
upon the whole Christian Church long 
after the decease of their alleged authors, 
is no longer accepted by any school of 
critics. Before the titanic leader closed 
his eyes it had come to be known as the 
Tibingen fiasco— “defeated along the 
whole line,” retreating before the fatal 
blows of sane criticism and common 
sense, and leaving unshaken the genuine- 
ness of every book of the New Testa- 
ment which was undisputed at the close 
of the second century of the Christian 
Era. All that survives of this terrific 
blast of the critics is here and there 
a stray “uncomprehending echo of the 
long silent voice, like an incoherent 
ghost revisiting the glimpses of the 
moon.” Our New Testament was not 
submerged. The Word of God did not 
pass away. Per contra the assaults upon 
it proved to be of signal advantage ta 
the cause of Biblical Science. This plow- 
ing through it deepened and cleansed the 
soil. The thunder cloud dissolved into 
a gracious rain. The fury of the storm 
cleared the sky. And the Tibingen col- 
lapse is not only a new presumptive 
proof of what the Church has hitherto 
believed concerning the Scriptures, but 
it has been made the occasion for 2 new 
demonstration of the genuine Apostolic 
authorship of the body of our New Tes- 
tament Scriptures. 

To quote Dr. Schaff: 

“This modern Gnosticism must be al- 
lowed to have done great service to Bib- 
lical and historical learning by removing 
old prejudices, opening new avenues of 
thought, bringing to light the immense 
fermentation of the first century, stimu- 
lating research, and compelling an entire 
scientific construction of the history of 
the origin of Christianity and the Church, 
The result will be a deeper and fuller 


knowledge, not to the weakening, but to 
the strengthening of our faith.” 

Says MacGregor: 

“Not only have all the learning, abil- 
ity, and unsparing labor, expended on the 
warfare against those Scriptures, left 
their credit unshaken, solidly established 
on the old foundation of scholarly his- 


torical judgment, but they have placed 
that foundation in a clearer light. And 
the credit that thus remains unshaken is 
necessarily strengthened by the failure 
to shake it—as the reputation of a vet- 
eran pilot is raised by his now weather- 
ing all the storms of a new stormy sea- 
son—as new storm is new proof that a 
house is founded on the rock.” 


And now another storm is raging, an- 
other tidal wave is beating against “the 
impregnable rock of Scripture’—this 
time lashing the other side of Gibraltar. 
It is the same destructive criticism, only 
changing the point of attack—a repeti- 
tion of the old assumptions, the old 
aims, the old charges, the old methods, 
the old boasts, the old arrogance, the 
old cocksureness, which characterized 
the Tubingen tempest. 

The bulk of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures are forgeries, it is charged, late 
productions while pretending to be of 
early origin and concealing the impos- 
ture by the invention of a false history. 
They are a composite of myth and le- 
gend, of fiction and fraud, invention and 
redaction—growing out of natural con- 
ditions and revolutionizing the original 
religion. 

This onslaught is in turn motived by 
the prepossessions of philosophy, the 
incredulity of the supernatural, the im- 
possibility of any such thing as miracle, 
revelation or prophecy. Negative as- 
sumptions are made the criterion for 
determining what to think of Scripture 
and its content. All must be accounted 
for by the laws of human development, 
the fixed continuity of nature. We have 
again “the blind unreason of disbelief 
in the operative being of God,” “the de- 
nial of those great principles whose rec- 
ognition is absolutely necessary to a 
right understanding of the Old Testa- 
ment.” 

And it may be said of the present 
movement, as was said of the Tiibingen 
School: “It has brought into the assault 
its own resources of learning, trained 


50 


academical acumen, and industry such 
as the world is not able to contain the 
books it has written”—and it has capped 
the climax of its pretensions by the un- 
scientific arrogation of infallibility for 
Science! 

Our limits do not allow us to account 
for the fiasco of the Tiibingen critics or 
to puncture the fallacies of their succes- 
sors; but since these are rearing the same 
sort of superstructure on the same un- 
substantial foundations on which was 
built the Tiibingen criticism, the un- 
sophisticated, inexorable common sense 
of history points to its early and iney- 
itable downfall. The recollection of the 
Tiibingen cyclone removes all doubt 
over the result of the modern Dlast. 
The evidences of its failure are already 
apparent. 

Professor Hommel, once in full sym- 
pathy with the modern destructive 
school, has prophesied its collapse 
within a generation. The signs of dis- 
integration have already appeared. The 
result, he holds, may give us some mod- 
ifications of the traditional view, but 
will not be a patchwork—bits of verses 
taken from various authors at various 
times. The Law will be recognized as 
of Mosaic origin—the entire Pentateuch 
as emanating from the same age—and 
nothing to impair the authority of the 
Old Testament as God’s revelation. The 
result to the Christian cause will, there- 
fore, ultimately be, not loss but gain, 
not the weakening but the strengthen- 
ing of the foundations. 

Says Dr. MacGregor: 

“As the result of two grand experi- 
ments, which are exhaustive, there will 
be not only an addition but a completion; 
there will have been completed a grand 
arch of demonstration by experimental 
proof: a fabric whose two sides, though 
separately neither of them should be able 
to stand, in their combination may be 


strong as the mountains round about 
Jerusalem.” 


“Das Wort sie sollen lassen stehn!” 


Second Special Topic 
“NEW UNCRITICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE RATIONAL- 
ISTIC PRINCIPLES” 


President Halt: The question was 
“once asked, “Can any good thing come 
out of Nazareth?” And the question 
can quite properly be asked, with good 
reason, Can anything conservative come 
out of Chicago? I am happy to say that 
something conservative can come out 
of Chicago; something just as sound and 
logical in every way as comes from New 
York, Richmond or Gettysburg, can 
come from the Windy City. I have 


great pleasure in introducing to you a 
friend from Chicago, a thorough stu- 
dent, and the well known author of many 
profound Biblical works, in the person 
of Rev. Dr. Revere Franklin Weidner, 
President of the Theological Seminary 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, in 
that city. He will speak upon another 
special topic that is just now coming into 
great prominence, and that can not fail 
to attract increasing attention. 


ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WEIDNER 


“The Uncritical Character of the Present Application of the Rationalistic Princi- 
ples to the New Testament” 


Mr. President and Brethren: I had 
prepared an elaborate address, and my 
manuscript I purposely left in my va- 
lise at the hotel; I thought it would 
be safer there. If you will pardon me, 
I want to be perfectly at home, and I 
will speak as I do in my classroom, when 
fifty young men are listening to me. 

First of all, I will express to you 
the intensity of my feeling with refer- 
ence to this whole subject. For twenty- 
two years I have been in the centre of 
the warfare, both in the Old Testament 
fight and in the New Testament fight. 
It has been my peculiar privilege, and 
I thank God for the opportunity, to 
study carefully the Old Testament in the 
Hebrew, and the New. Testament in the 
Greek. For many years, from 1882, 
in all the earlier movements, when 
this trouble began, my specialty was 
the Old Testament in Hebrew, and 
at the same time the New Testament in 
Greek, and I know whereof I speak. I 
have been in the midst of the battle, and 
I have been privately and publicly at- 
tacked. 

The saddest thing of all is that some 
of my dearest friends who, at one time, 
were professors in theological semin- 
aries, step by step, began to lose faith, 
carried away by the insidious attacks. 
And today one of those exegetes of the 
Old Testament is in the real estate busi- 


5I 


ness in Minneapolis; he was an honor- 
able man and gave up teaching when 
he found he had no faith in it. I wish 
they all would do the same. Another 
one of my dear friends—! am sorry to 
say he was one of the most -earnest 
Presbyterian ministers I ever met, godly 
and devout—came gradually under the 
personal influence of men by whom he 
was surrounded and where we were 
working together, until finally he re- 
signed his charge. He began to drift 
away, and today he is lecturing, when he 
has the opportunity, on Wagnerian Mu- 
sic and the beautiful things of Hindoo 
Theosophy and kindred subjects! There 
he has found a subject to his heart. 
Brethren, this is a serious matter, and 
before I come to the point at issue, I 
wish to pave the way for certain things. 
We have had many practical addresses. 
You will pardon me if I go a little to 
the root of things. I have a few things 
that I jotted down this morning, as I 
would use them in my classroom, be- 
cause the subject is so important, and 
we have to go so into detail. I want to 
make the matter clear and, therefore, 
will sometimes read a few things and 
then expound them, as I do in the class- 
room. When I quote men I want to 
quote them in their exact words, so that 
we will know just what these men teach. 
Otherwise we are playing at hazard. - 


It is a serious matter, and it depends 
so much on how you look at things. I 
look at that window; I see some beauti- 
ful colors—my glass happens to be a 
white glass and I can see them. If I 
put on blue glass, green or yellow, things 
will look different. It depends on what 
we look at things through, what presup- 
position we start with. The way you 
start decides the way you will go. 

There are lots of trains that run out 
of New York. If I get on a train that 
has its destination Philadelphia, even if 
I want to go to Boston, I will get to 
Philadelphia. And if I want to go to 
Philadelphia, and there is a train stand- 
ing, that, with all its pre-suppositions, en- 
gine and everything else, is going to 
Boston, if I go along with it I will go 
there, no matter what my opinion may 
be about the way we are going. The 
way you start decides the way you will 
go. 

A. Definition of Higher Criticism. 

Now, what is Higher Criticism? We 
have heard so much about it—but I must 
lay down a few fundamental principles 
to start with. 

Higher Criticism itself is nothing but 
a method of study. It aims by means of 
internal evidence, obtained by the study 
of any one Biblical book or narrative, to 
determine the origin of that book, its 
authorship, the literary character and 
trustworthiness of the book. The de- 
sign, the contents, the character of the 
book under consideration and their rela- 
tions to other writings—we call that, 
technically, the science of Higher Criti- 
cism. 

The word itself does not designate any 
given set of opinions regarding the Bi- 
ble. That is only the result of it. The 
phrase does not decide by itself whether 
the critics are radical or conservative; it 
is simply a name given to the method 
of historical and critical study of the 
Bible. Now, whether it be called Nega- 
tive Higher Criticism or Positive Higher 
Criticism depends altogether on the in- 
tellectual temperament, the mental dis- 
position of the investigator, and on the 
presuppositions and the principles which 
guide him in his work. That is the 


whole thing at issue. Negative Higher 
Criticism can only be met on its own 
ground, and that only in a strictly scien- 
tific way. There assuredly exists, how-- 
ever, a Higher Criticism that springs 
from full confidence of faith as well 
as one that starts up from doubt. I 
simply wish to draw the sharp line there. 
There is a Negative Higher Criticism, 
and there is a Positive Higher Criti- 
cism; the two things are utterly dis- 
tinct. 

Before I discuss this topic which has 
been assigned to me, it will be helpful 
to state what causes led these two 
schools of Higher Criticism, Negative 
and Positive, to reach such opposing and 
contradictory conclusions,—for they are 
contradictory. 

The Negative Higher Critics profess 
to be seeking the truth. They maintain 
that they have found a better way for 
finding out the meaning of a book of the 
Bible, or the significance of its message 
to us, than we have. It may sound par- 
adoxical, but it is nevertheless true, 
that with these disciples of destructive 
Criticism, the true believer in Revela- 
tion, the true believer in the inspiration 
of the Bible, can have no manner of con- 
troversy. You can not discuss the mat- 
ter with them on that ground. I am 
speaking seriously. I know whereof I 
am speaking. 
B. The Presuppositions and Principles 

of the Negative Criticism. : 

The presuppositions of these Negative © 
Higher Critics, their specific views, their 
peculiar logical processes as affecting the 
study and the interpretation of the New 
Testament, are so totally different from 
our own that it is as impossible to argue 













species. They only laugh at us. 
as impossible to explain to them th 
true meaning of passages of Scripture as 
to explain the beautiful shadings of blu 
and green to a man who is color blind 
you might talk till doomsday and h 
would not detect the difference. Thes 
live in another world of thought, and 
am not finding fault with them; the 
may be honest in their aims; I 
simply saying they live in another worl 


of thought. The majority of these Nega- 
tive Higher Critics have such peculiar 
conceptions of God, of Revelation, of 
Inspiration, of the natural ability of hu- 
man nature, of the Person of Christ, of 
the consequence of His death, of the ob- 
jective reality of truth, that all discussion 
of the difficulties pertaining to Higher 
Criticism have to be postponed until we 
have come to some general agreement on 
these fundamental questions. We have, 
therefore, at present no controversy at 
all with these Negative Higher Critics, 
we are only presenting the stand taken 
by those that are known as Negative 
Higher Critics. My object is mainly to 
show you the great difference between 
the way they look at things and the way 
we look at things, and to make this as 
comprehensive and clear to you as I 
possibly can. We are now neither argu- 
ing for or against these critics, nor are 
we pleading with them. I simply wish to 
present to you the question at issue. 
We intend simply to map out as fairly 
and sharply as possible the presupposi- 
tions and principles on which these 
Negative Higher Critics are working, 
and then contrast with them the pre- 
suppositions and the principles with 
which those of us who believe in the 
Bible are working, to show the contrast. 
But, first, you must meet the charge, 
so persistently brought against the con- 
servatives, that they approach the study 
of the Bible with certain preconceived 
ideas. The moment you meet a Higher 
Critic and want to talk with him, the 
first thing he will say to you is this: 
“You are dogmatic; you have a bias; you 
can’t get that out of your head; there is 
no use of discussing the matter with 
you.” They hold that we come with a 
dogmatic bias, and therefore we can not 
pursue our studies in a critical manner. 
These critical students claim, however, 
that they approach the Bible simply with 
the earnest desire to know the truth, 
and that they do not come with any 
dogmatic bias. Well, these men have 
a bias. We all come with a dogmatic 
bias; I do for myself; I can’t get rid of 
it. The Bible is the Bible; I can’t get rid 
of it. But it is equally true that no man 


53 


on earth can approach the study of the 
Bible without some bias. Every human 
being in this matter has a mental bias; 
it may be of indifference, of skepticism 
or of faith; it may be a dogmatic bias, 
a historical bias, or an ethical bias. He 
may be a Pantheist, denying there is a 
personal God. He may be a Deist, de- 
nying there is any Revelation at all. He 
may be a Theist—and there are a dozen 
kinds of theists now—no matter what 
he is, everything will affect the position 
here. He may be by conviction a Nega- 
tive Higher Critic, or he may be a Posi- 
tive Higher Critic; but no one is without 
some opinions, without some views, and 
a certain mental bias. The Negative 
Higher Critics in their way have just 
as much bias, just as many preconceived 
ideas, as their companions. Nothing is 
here gained by calling names or claiming 
special prerogatives. This is the first 
great weakness in their whole general 
position. 

In the second place, as has been re- 
ferred to again and again in these meet- 
ings, they claim that all the scholarship 
represented in New Testament work is 
arrayed on their side. However this may 
be, it may, as a rule, be said to their 
credit, that the real scholars among 
them have more sense and are juster to 
themselves, and this cry comes from 
“the drawers of water and hewers of 
wood,” who serve at the tables of their 
masters. The real scholars know better. 

There are, therefore, two kinds of 
Higher Criticism; the one we call Nega- 
tive, the other we call Positive, and they 
can be as sharply defined as day and 
night. 

First presupposition—The majority of 
Negative Higher Critics altogether deny 
a special Revelation in the New Testa- 
ment. They maintain that the New Tes- 
tament writings are to be read as human 
books and regarded in the human way, 
alone. Revelation, according to them, 
must be regarded as a genuine human 
progress, the creation and product of 
Christian consciousness. They say there 
is nothing revealed in the Bible; it is 
the product of the human mind like the 
literature of all ages. This is the first 


presupposition, their first general opin- 
ion. 

One of the ablest theologians of the 
New England school—a great author who 
for almost fifty years moulded the theo- 
logical and philosophical minds of nearly 
a thousand Congregational ministers,—a 
great author who has written many books, 
and among them books on Apologetics, 
says—and I want to bring this out clear- 
ly, because this brings out the very point 
at issue that I want to illustrate:— 

“Tt is an error and a misconception to 
maintain that God’s revelation ceased 
with the death of the last of Christ’s Apos- 
tles.” This is the first mistake we make. 

Secondly, he says: “It is incorrect to 
hold [I quote him] that Revelation was 
then complete and recorded in a book, 
and that God leaves that book among 
men as His finished Revelation by which 
the world is to be converted.” He says 
that is a mistake. 

He says, thirdly, “The common dis- 
tinction between Revealed Religion and 
Natural Religion is misleading.” These 
are his words. 

Then he says, “God reveals Himself pri- 
marily by what He does in the constitu- 
tion and evolution of the physical uni- 
verse, in the constitution of man and in 
his progressive education and develop- 
ment, and He reveals truth only in a 
secondary sense, for the truth revealed 
is. simply man’s intellectual apprehension 
of what God really is and does as He 
has revealed and is revealing Himself in 
His actions.” Now, that is his definition 
of Revelation. 

The question at issue here really is, 
Has Christianity a supernatural origin? 
The tendency of the Higher Critics is 
to deny the reality of such a supernat- 
ural origin of Christianity. In this they 
are neither scientific nor logical. Nor 
are they consistent with the very first 
principles of interpretation, for it is a 
familiar law of hermeneutics that to un- 
derstand a writing we must put our- 
selves in a sympathetic relation with the 
writer. No one who denies Revelation 
can recognize the immense significance of 
Paul’s statement when, in Galatians, he 
makes this assertion: “For I make known 


54 


to you, brethren, as touching the Gospel, 
which was preached by me, that it is not 
after man; for neither did I receive it 
from man nor was I taught it, but it 
came to me through the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ.” Now, a man who has such 
views of revelation as these men have 
can not understand what Paul means 
when he says that. 

Now, in contradistinction to such an 
equivocal, hypercritical and unscientific 
way, believers approach the study of the 
Bible in a sympathetic way; because 
Christianity declares itself to be the 
fruit of special Revelation, of which the 
historic Christ is the centre. Where 
this disposition is wanting, where men 
refuse to accept the superhuman origin 
of the New Testament, there men reason 
about it, write about it, talk about it. and 
criticize it, just like blind men reasoning 
about colors. 

Now, that is one presupposition, as I 
said, of almost all Higher Critics; in 
other words, they say we draw too sharp 
a distinction between Supernatural Rev- 
elation and Natural Revelation; they say 
it is all Natural Revelation. 

Second Presupposition.—In the second 
place these Negative Higher Critics also 
show their unscientific character by their 
peculiar views and theories of inspira- 
tion. 

A professed historian of the High- 
er Criticism says (and I quote his 
exact words): “Criticism has its In- 
spiration. The credal period was 
inspired.” He means the time when 
creeds were made and when the Bible 
was collected together—that was in- 
spired. “Without it we could not have 
our own Bible. Without it we should 
not have that common Christian con- 
sciousness, which is the foundation of 
the idealizing forces of our time. Our 
Own critical age is no less inspired. The 
Word of God has now been unbound, 
set free from the shackles that human 
opinion had put on it.” That is the way 
he puts it. 

Now, it is not our aim to discuss the 
various theories of Inspiration current 
among these Negative Critics—you have 
heard of some of them. Some of them 


ee 


maintain it is simply Natural Inspiration 
just like Shakespeare, Homer, or any of 
these grand old authors; that it is illu- 
mination of the mind and nothing more. 
Then, others, again, hold the popular 
view that some things are inspired, 
others are not. I am not going to dis- 
cuss this. 

The point I make is simply this: If 
we approach the study of the Bible with 
a view not in sympathy with it, or in 
conflict with what it professes to be; if 
we do not take into consideration the 
moral and intellectual character of the 
Bible——we do not approach it in the 
true way. It is not in accordance with 
the true principles of interpretation, nor 
can such a man ever arrive at the 
thought of the men whose words are 
written in the New Testament. 

The question also arises, Can any one 
obtain a true knowledge of the Word of 
God, its meaning and its bearing upon 
our lives, unless he is taught by the 
Spirit? 

Now, that is an important question. 
Do you know, the Bible makes that a 
prominent point,—that no man can be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ, or call 
Him Lord, except by the power of the 
Spirit? They utterly cast that aside. 
They demand that we interpret the 
Bible in the same way as all other 
known writings. 

Now, if this be the true way (and we 
will grant it for the time being), then 
these writings must be taken on their 
own claims and judged by the light they 
bring. If they want to do that, let them 
take them just as they are, in the light 
of what they profess to be. These books 
claim to be divine. They prove their 
claim, as every man who has been re- 
generated by the Holy Spirit can tes- 
tify. Then, why should we reduce them 
back to purely human writing? This 
whole position on their part is preju- 
diced, it is one-sided, it is altogether un- 
scientific. Speaking about their critical 
principles, there is nothing critical about 
this, nothing scientific about it. There 
must be a better critical method on their 
part. Let them apply the canon of criti- 
cism they love to speak about. 


55 


Why, such men can never understand 
the true significance of Jesus Christ’s 
promises. Well, if you were critics, my 
friends, I would not dare to urge this 
position. If you were Negative Critics, 
you would raise the question: “You 
know very well our Savior never said 
that; it is from St. John; ‘But the Com- 
forter, even the Holy Spirit whom the 
Father will send in My name, He shall 
teach you all things and bring to your 
remembrance the things that I have said 
unto you.” 

Others will say, “You know as well 
as I do that St. John did not write that, 
nor did our Savior ever say it.” 

If we then quote John xvi. 13, which 
we love to dwell upon: “H'owbeit when 
he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will 
guide you into all truth; for he shall not 
speak of himself; but whatsoever he 
shall hear, that shall he speak; and he 
shall declare unto you the things that 
are to come,” they will say: “You 
know very well, Professor, that John 
did not write that, nor did our Savior 
say it. We critics have gone beyond 
that.” There is no use proving this 
from the Bible; you might as well talk 
to the moon. They could not under- 
stand such testimony as that of St. Paul, 
when in First Thessalonians he writes, 
“For this cause also thank we God with- 
out ceasing, because when ye received 
the Word of God which ye heard of us, 
ye accepted it not as the word of men, 
but as it is in truth, the Word of God 
which effectually worketh also in you 
that believe.” They could not under- 
stand that in that way. 

Brethren, there is a right way and a 
wrong way to carry on your critical 
study. We can readily understand what 
results a man will attain who preaches 
the Bible with such views as we have 
discussed, denying its supernatural ori- 
gin and denying its inspiration. 

Brethren, there are two great miracles 
which are the centre and the foundation 
of all Bible truth: the first is the Incar- 
nation of the Son of God, that the Son 
of God took upon Himself our human 
nature; the second, which is a comple- 
ment to it and which you can not sepa- 


rate, is the Inspiration of the Bible. How 
can I know the fact of the Incarnation of 
the Son of God, unless I have an abso- 
lutely true statement concerning it? I can 
not otherwise believe it; I can not sepa- 
tate the two; they stand or fall together. 

Let me tell you another thing, Breth- 
ren. The men who do not believe in the 
Inspiration of the Bible are the very 
men who do not believe in the Incarna- 
tion of the Son of God. 

Now, you can rest assured I am telling 
you the truth here—I know whereof I 
speak—and those of you who have ever 
investigated the matter, know these 
things are absolutely so; the doctrine of 
the Incarnation of the Son of God, and 
of the Inspiration of Scripture, com- 
plement each other. Excuse me for 
using the expression in the Word 
of God—vwritten in the language of 
men, using the powers and gifts of 
men and their peculiar character, and 
everything that pertains to them—the 
Holy Ghost has become Incarnate, and 


the doctrines of Incarnation and of In- 


spiration can not be separated; they stand 
and they fall together. You can medi- 
tate on that, brethren, as long as you 
live and investigate Scripture. It is the 
Bible that claims that the Son of God 
became Incarnate, and it is the Bible 
that claims that the Holy Record is in- 
spired, and that men wrote the books 
guided by the Holy Ghost. I have not 
time to discuss that subject; that is an- 
other topic. 

The way of the believer is the truly 
scientific way; he approaches the Bible, 
not in a sceptical, but in a reverential 
and devout, spirit, acknowledging the 
supernatural origin of the Bible and its 
inspiration; for, brethren, the conserva- 
tive may be more truly critical than the 
most radical critic, for he has a desire 
to get all the facts recorded in Scripture 
in all their bearings. A book must be 
studied from the standpoint of its inner 
claims. If it professes to be written by 
Paul, if it claims to have received a reve- 
lation from God, the true critical spirit 
is to enter upon the more detailed ex- 
amination of that book on the basis of 
these facts. 


56 


The question narrows itself down to 
this, my friends: Shall we start our 


study of a particular book of the New 


Testament from the standpoint of what 
the book itself says of itself, or from the 
view of some critic who may deny the 
fact of a supernatural revelation at all, 
or of inspiration? There can be but one 
answer. The position of the Negative 
Higher Critic is neither critical nor sci- 
entific. 

Third Presupposition.— These Nega- 
tive Higher Critics take it for granted 
that our traditional views of the New 
Testament are utterly false from every 
standpoint. They put outside the critical 
pale those who retain the supernatural 
interpretation of the origin of Christi- 
anity. This position on their part is 
neither critical nor scholarly. We hold 
that the traditional view is the most 
reasonable working hypothesis for the 
proper study of the Bible. It is just as 
legitimate, and certainly it constitutes 
just as good a working hypothesis. 

Fourth Presupposition.—Strange as it 
may seem, brethren, certain presupposi- 
tions in philosophy underlie every form 
of Negative Higher Criticism, and these 
are the most important of all. The dis- 
cussion of this point may be a little dry, 
but I know that in view of its import- 
ance you will bear with me, and I will 
try to make it as interesting and brief 
as possible. 

Certain presuppositions in philosophy 
underlie every form of Higher Criticism. 
We can not rid ourselves of any and all 
philosophic views. The more positive 
and realistic our philosophy, the more 
conservative will be our position. The 
more idealistic our philosophy, the more 
radical will be our position. 

Three Fundamental Questions in Phi- 
losophy.—In these days of advanced cul- 
ture and thought, when everybody wants 
to know something about philosophy, 
we have a right to ask three great fun- 
damental questions of every man who 
poses as a theologian, or wishes to come 
forth as an interpreter of the Bible. 

The first question is, What is your 
theory of the Universe, or don’t you be- 
lieve in the Universe at all?- 


The second is, What.is your theory of 
Knowledge, or don’t you know anything? 

The third is, What is your opinion of 
the ultimate rule of Right, or is Right 
right because you say so? 

Remember those are three great ques- 
tions; and of every man who poses as 
an interpreter of the Bible we have a 
right to ask those questions. 

Well, now, I have got to subdivide 
the discussion. 

1. Theory of the Universe.—With ref- 
erence to a man’s theory of the Uni- 
verse, he must be able to give answer to 
five important questions. He is talking 
now so learnedly; he is going to ex- 
pound the Bible. You want to know 
with reference to his opinion of the Uni- 
verse his answers to five questions. 

_ First, Do you believe that there is a 
Supreme Spirit who created the Uni- 
verse? He must either say yes or no. 

We ask him again. Do you believe 
that only matter exists or only mind ex- 
ists; or do both exist; or is there a fu- 
sion of the two? That is, he must con- 
fess and tell us whether he is a mate- 
rialist or whether he is a spiritualist, or 
whether he is a dualist, or a monist. 

We will go a step further, and ask 


him: Do you think that events occur. 


“mechanically or from the point of view 

of purpose? He will have to come to 
some conclusion, 

We have a right to ask him: “What 
is your idea of God? Are you a Panthe- 
ist, or are you a Deist, or are you an 
Atheist, or are you a Theist? You must 
be one or the other, and we have a right 
to ask.” 

And, finally, we ask him: “Do you be- 
lieve in the Freedom of the Will,or do 
you not? What do you say about that?” 

Well, you may say, “What has this to 
do with the matter of Criticism?” It 
has a great deal to do with it, brethren. 
All this we must know with reference 
to a man’s metaphysical ideas in rela- 
tion to the question: “What is your 
theory of the Universe?” Strange as it 
may seem, his views on the Bible are 
largely dependent upon his attitude 
upon these important questions on the 
theory of the universe. 


57 


2. Theory of Knowledge.—But this is 
not the most important, yet it is im- 
portant. We come to the second ques- 
tion: “What is your theory of Knowl- 
edge?” Here, we have to ask three 
questions of this man. We put him be- 
fore us and we say: 

“Now, let me ask you, what is your 
idea of the origin of Knowledge? Where 
did you get it? Is Reason the only 
source, or is it from Experience?” 
Nearly all these men are empiricists, 
holding that we gain our knowledge 
mainly, if not wholly, from experience. 
“Or does knowledge arise from both Rea- 
son and Experience, or is there some other 
explanation of this?” All men, that is, 
true theologians, have positive convic- 
tions about these things, and we can 
mark them just as you can the difference 
between yellow and white. When we 
learn a man’s philosophical opinions, we 
know exactly where he is going to come 
out. We know by what train he is go- 
ing and we know where he will get off. 


Now, that is the second question. We 
are not through yet with him. 
We ask the next question: “What is 


your conception of the validity of 
Knowledge? When is a thing really 
true? Is all knowledge valid, and can we 
know everything? Or is all knowledge 
only relatively and subjectively valid, 
and true only for a particular time and 
particular place, or under particular con- 
ditions? Here all these fellows sit in a 
row; they all say, “It is only true at a 
certain time, but it is not always true.” 
Brethren, that is very important. 

Again, we have a right to ask: “Is it 
only valid and true for the individual 
who comes to the knowledge of it?” 
And they say, “Yes, a thing is not true 
unless you know it.” 

What nonsense! A thing is true, 
whether you believe it or don’t believe 
it; whether you ever heard of it or not. 
There is a God that exists, whether you 
believe it or disbelieve it, or have no 
views about it. That has nothing to do 
with it: But these men all take that 
position. Or is the true answer, that 
human knowledge has limits or degrees 
of certainty, and that necessarily we 


must determine these limits of human 
knowledge? 

I simply wish to say that we must ask 
every one of these critics, “What are 
your theories of Knowledge? What are 
your views about those things? What 
is your conception of the contents of 
Knowledge? What is it that you ac- 
tually can get when you have it in your 
little book here? Does it consist merely 
of ideas and simply a content of —con- 
sciousness, something subjective; or is 
there an objective something existing 
outside of consciousness not dependent 
upon our ideas; or are the two, the sub- 
jective and the objective, simply phenom- 
enal things as they appear in their re- 
lation to us, and not things as they 
are?” And here, brethren, all these men 
take the wrong conception. There is no 
such thing to them as objective truth; 
no such thing. It is only true when you 
believe it. If I had time, I would like 
to develop this, although it has been dis- 
cussed under a different topic. Breth- 
ren, these men are all full of points 
everywhere, horns sticking out every- 
where; and you have got to commence 
pulling at one end and pull out every 
one, and after you pluck them, they 
don’t see it. 

3. The Ethical Question.—The third 
great question is the most important of 
all we have touched upon yet, that is, the 
ethical question. You have a right to 
ask this: “What is the origin of Moral- 
ity? Why is a thing right? Why is it 
obligatory? Does moral obligation have 
its origin in the mind of man?” And, 
poor fellows, lots of them think that 
reason decides everything. 

Or, is it in his conscience? They think 
their conscience—even if it is depraved 
or stunted—settles everything. That 
is the rule of right. 

Or, is there an authoritative law that is 
positive, based upon the Will of God as 
H'e has revealed Himself? That is the 
point at issue. Is a thing right, even if 
I do not know it and do not value it, 
and reject it and refuse it? Is it right 
after all, depending not at all upon my 
conscience nor upon my will? 

Is this moral idea in us implanted, 


58 


born with us, born in us, or is it simply 
the product of opinion, and the evolu- 
tion of the individual and the race? 
These men are all permeated with 
this evolution theory. Why, even 
Spencer goes so far that he maintains 
that conscience is an evolution, and the 
time will come when there will be no 
distinction between right and wrong, be- 
cause every one’s conscience is abso- 
lutely right—that is Herbert Spencer’s 
conclusion, 

These Questions Fundamental to Crit- 
icism.—Now, why speak of these things? 
Because we can not properly and 
intelligently speak of the problems of 
New Testament Criticism, or under- 
stand the reason of the uncritical and 
destructive conclusions arrived at by 
these Negative Critics, unless we know 
the positions that these men take on 
these philosophic problems; and unless 
a man knows this and knows whereof 
he speaks, there is no use of arguing 
with him. 

That they come to such views does 
not depend so much on the facts they 
have had before them; it does not de- 
pend upon those facts that they pro- 
duce in that analysis and investigation; 
everything depends on the views and 
presuppositions which they bring with 
them, and the mental bias that guides 
them, and that so colors their mental 
and spiritual vision that they see men 
like trees walking,—and they are always 
trees. 

Now, these Negative Critics have a 
peculiar view of Knowledge. The Ideal- 
ists have drawn a sharp distinction be- 
tween religious knowledge and theoret- 
ical knowledge. Religious knowledge, 
they say, has only to do with value judg- 
ments; there is no objective truth that 
is universally true. A doctrine is only 
so far true as it has a value for me, i.e., 
according to its fitness to me or as it 
satisfies my own religious needs. 

A historian of this movement thinks 
(and let us listen to his grandiloquent 
language)—he thinks that “the great 
aim of all true Biblical men in their 
study is to do their work in such a way 
that the Bible may commend itself to 


teasoning and reverent men as God’s 
Book of final values for all who would 
live nobly.” That is it. Just think, 
brethren, it is to commend itself to you 
for its final values; if you know what 
that means—I do not. 

Equally peculiar is their conception of 
moral judgment. The natural reason is 
regarded as the norm, the rule, the stand- 
ard of all that is right. Whatever I think 
is right; that must be right. This in 
Ethics is known as the Autonomist view; 
the man is a law to himself. 


C. The Three Methods of the Higher 

Criticism, 

Now, brethren, those are the princi- 
ples—you understand that—and when a 
man looks at things that way and comes 
to teach the Bible, you all know what 
the result will be. 

Now, Higher Criticism has three meth- 
ods. The first is what we call the Liter- 
ary Method. The second is what we call 
the Historic Method. The third is what 
we call the Theological Method. Oh, 
they have got things down to a fine 
point! 

1. Now we come to the Literary 
Method. 

That is a fine thing—I wish I could 
tell you about it—how they get up all 
these objective propositions and study 
the soul of things. Oh, it is wonderfully 
interesting! but the vagaries and extrava- 
gancies of the so-called Literary Critics 
are simply amazing. I will just illus- 
trate. 

You have heard of Tiibingen. These 
Tiibingen fellows are very wise; they 
know what style is; they know all about 
that in the New Testament; so they ex- 
amine the writings of St. John, the Gos- 
pel and Epistles and the Apocalypse. 
Well, then, one set come to the conclu- 
sion at one time that the man who 
wrote the Greek of St. John and wrote 
the Greek of the Epistles could not have 
written the Apocalypse; but that John 
wrote the Gospel and the Epistles, and 
he didn’t write the Apocalypse. Then, a 
few years later came another set, and 
they began to thresh it over again, and 
they concluded: “Yes, that is so. One 


59 


could not have written them both; but 
it was St. John that wrote the Apoca- 
lypse, and he did not write the Gospel 
and the Epistles.” And next came the 
third set. They concluded: “There is 
a mistake here evidently. St. John wrote 
the Epistles and the Apocalypse, but he 
did not write the Gospel.” And so they 
kept on threshing one another, and the 
latest thing is that St. John wrote the 
Apocalypse but no one knows who wrote 
the Gospel of St. John or the Epistles. 
I only want to show you how conclusive 
the argument is; how they all agree to 
disagree. 

Brethren, it takes clear judgment, it 
takes fine skill; it becomes a Bacon- 
Shakespeare question. It revives the old 
question, “Who wrote Shakespeare?” to 
settle these matters of style. It is a very 
dificult problem, and there is a wide- 
spread conviction among scholars that 
those attacks upon the books by the 
critics will not come to anything posi- 
tive in the way of results. 

Let me tell you a little story. I do 
not know whether many of you have ever 
read Dr. Mead’s “Romans Dissected.” It 
is a good book. He wrote it in Germany, 
and he took the position (by the way, I 
must tell you beforehand that this was 
only to show how foolish their position 
is; he wrote it as a joke; but he wrote it); 
and he took the position that there were 
four authors of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans; that one man always said, “Jesus 
Christ the Lord;”’ another said, “The 
Lord Jesus Christ;” another, “The Lord 
Jesus;” and the other, “Jesus the Lord.” 
It is a good thing, and he signs himself 
“McRealsham.” The joke was, the Ger- 
mans got hold of it and praised it, and 
said it was a decided step in the progress 
of Higher Criticism! Then, in the second 
edition, he had to translate it into Eng- 
lish; and then he put in the preface that 
it was to be understood clearly that he 
did not take that position himself; he 
only wrote the book to show how foolish 
their argument was. I want you to ex- 
amine it sometime. 

This literary method is very complex 
and misleading. The internal evidence 
upon which they rely, you can not find. 


Each man has a certain ground for his 
conclusion, but it is always questionable. 
The whole process lacks external evi- 
dence, and so we must say it is alto- 
gether unsatisfactory. This is what we 
call the Literary Method, and the amaz- 
ing learning these men display is some- 
thing wonderful; they are depositaries of 
learning, walking encyclopedias, but what 
good does it do? 

2. We come now to the Historical 
School, 

The Historical School generally take 
the naturalistic position; that is, they say 
the miraculous is incredible. They start 
with that and come to the Book with 
presuppositions so strong that their judg- 
ment is all distorted and one-sided. They 
take for granted that there is a contrast 
between the teaching of Jesus and that 
of St. Paul—they take that for granted 
and say that Paul is the real founder of 
Christianity as we know it, and not 
Christ. 

Notice again, that they say, the teach- 
ing of Jesus Christ being the only guide, 
we can not claim for Paul the same level 
of authority as we can for what Jesus 
said: they take that position. 

Now, notice again, they say Paul was 
possessed of certain presuppositions; and 
that the peculiarities of his wonderful 
theology are due to two things: first, 
the Pharisaism that was still in him— 
on this they quote passage after passage 
—and, secondly, his early training; and 
they say that is the reason we have got 
things so distorted in St. Paul’s writings. 

In fact, notice this, brethren—and you 
can not understand New Testament criti- 
cism unless you lay stress upon this—ac- 
cording to the view of the Higher Critics, 
as a rule, the Apostles were but inter- 
preters of Christ’s teaching just as we 
are today simply interpreters. Christ 
said something and they try to explain 
it; their teaching was but an individual 
interpretation of Christ’s teaching. One 
of them says that the teaching of the 
Apostles in the New Testament has not 
as great an authority as ours has today.— 
Why? Why? Why?—We have lived later; 
we have more knowledge; we have more 
experience. They say we have the whole 


60 


past behind us, and so we have got the 


whole history and experience of the ~ 


Christian Church to aid us; and there- 
fore we can interpret the New Testament 
better than anything we have found in 
the New Testament itself. 

Now, what does that mean, brethren, 
just think what that means! We must go 
back and find out what sayings there are 
of Christ in the Gospels; and then we 
can interpret them better than these men 
could! 

They say that the Apostles and early 
writers themselves added something,— 
their views, their interpretation—to the 
sayings of Jesus; that the sayings of 
Jesus are the whole thing, the logia, The 
Apostles added their interpretation to 
those logia, and so there was a documen- 
tary growth; first, a little was added to it, 
and then a little more; Matthew had col- 
lected certain things, Luke had collected 
certain things; after a while each added 
a little more, his own interpretation, 
then afterwards enlarged it; then an- 
other man got hold of it and enlarged it; 
so we do not know anything that Christ 
really said, except a passage or two, and 
there are doubts about even that. 

That is their idea of documentary 
growth, and there is that Evolutionary 
Fad, about which we will hear later from 
a scientific point of view. They start 
with the idea—this is the historical posi- 
tion—that all records of the supernatural, 
whether in the Gospels or in the Epistles, 
are evidently unhistoric. As they are 
not historic, we need not pay any atten- 
tion to them; such narratives are largely 
legendary and mythical. 

3. Now we come to the Theological 
Method. There the Gritics take up the 
contents of each book with reference to 
its theology, and start in with their pre- 
supposition that we have only interpre- 
tations of Christ’s teaching in the New 
Testament, and they positively attack all 
the fundamental truths of Christianity; 
there is not a single one that is left ac- 
cording to the position of these critics. 
The Apostles have everywhere erred in 
their statements of doctrine. They have 
erred especially in the doctrines of Esch- 
atology; even Jesus, they say, got mixed 


en 


up there; there is nothing clear about 
what they claim; they all got mixed 
up about punishment, about the incarna- 
tion, about Christ being born without 
sin. And so they take up every doctrine 
and question it; especially about the 
Second Advent, they do not want to 
hear anything about that. 
_ Now, when they come to the study of 
all these things they pursue very un- 
critical methods. They do nothing but 
find fault; they are critical in this par- 
ticular sense of the word, finding fault 
all the time. They start on the principle 
of doubting everything—and I am sorry 
to say that this is the method of modern 
education; modern education now says 
a man can not learn anything unless he 
doubts, he must doubt; don’t believe in 
anything that has been told you from 
childhood, but question everything—and 
so they start in on all their critical la- 
bors, not to believe it is so and take it 
for granted until you find it is false; but 
no, you must doubt everything. We say 
this is 2 non-critical way. 

They first make fun of the doctrine of 
the Roman Catholic Church which main- 
tains the infallibility of the Church. Then 


they claim that the Protestant Church _ 


takes the safe position. Then they make 
fun of Papal Infallibility and say that is 
not so. Finally they settle down upon 
the Infallibility of every man that writes 
upon it—he knows all about it (Christ 
did not know and Paul did not know)— 
the Critics settle everything and they 
give us the facts. 

I only want to tell you, my friends, 
what this thing amounts to. There is 
something back of it. They claim nu- 
merous contradictions, and then they use 
these discrepancies, as they regard them, 
as arguments against the credibility of 
the Book. 

They love to tell us about that entry 
of Christ into- Jericho, where in Luke 
it tells us that when he drew nigh unto 
the city, He cured a blind man; but in 
Matthew we are told that when our Sav- 
ior was leaving Jericho He cured two 
blind men. They say, “Here is evidently 
the same narrative, but the writer got 
mixed up.” Why, there were many blind 


61 


men in Jericho at that time. Those of you 
who have travelled in the East, know that 
there is a great deal of blindness; there 
is nothing surprising at all in that. But 
they emphasize all seeming discrepan- 
cies every time—that is their stock in 
trade—they bring that out; and the man 
who does not know anything about it, he 
gets stunned when these learned men 
come with these profound discussions. 

And you ought to study the question 
of the Harmony of the Gospels. Ac- 
cording to their claims, there is no har- 
mony at all; we have nothing positive. 
Their method is unscientific, because they 
limit themselves mainly to internal evi- 
dence, and leave out of consideration and 
systematically exclude a large amount of 
the evidence at hand on which the truth 
of Christianity rests. 

One illustration: If there is one thing 
clear in the testimony of the ancient 
Church, it is that St. John, in his old age 
(about the year 96), wrote the Apoca- 
lypse. This is the uniform testimony of 
all Christian writers from St. John’s 
time on to the Third Century, the uni- 
form external evidence. And, yet, these 
men simply sit down (and I am sorry to 
say not only the rationalistic interpret- 
ers, but many others) and take the po- 
sition, purely from very questionable in- 
ternal evidence, that if St. John wrote 
this book it must have been composed be- 
tween the death of Nero (68 A.D.) and the 
destruction of Jerusalem (7o A. D.)— 
and they settle the whole thing right 
there and then. They go on and get 
the internal evidence and never touch 
the question of external evidence. The 
latest critic, however, finds it to his pur- 
pose to accept St. John as the author, 
and so he accepts the external evidence, 
and maintains that John wrote the Apoc- 
alypse about 96 A.D. He, however, 
comes to the astounding conclusion that 
the Gospel of John records only logia, 
or sayings of our Savior, and that St. 
John had very little to do with it; that 
it contains simply the metaphysical opin- 
ions of a writer who lived long after 
John’s time; and simply because it falls 
in with his view, the latest critic reaches 
the conclusion that the external evi- 


dence must be considered in deciding 
the time and authorship of Revelation. 

Now, one of them maintains that the 
most trustworthy information that we 
have regarding the origin of the greater 
part of the New Testament books, is 
not to be credited to the Christian wri- 
ters who lived within sixty or one hun- 
dred years after they were written, but 
we owe all of this knowledge to the 
historic criticism which took its rise sev- 
enteen hundred years later. 

Another writer, who lives in this city, 
writes: “If the question which the higher 
criticism seeks to answer can not be an- 
swered by this method, then there is no 
answer at all.” That is, we are to ex- 
clude external evidence altogether, and 
rely only on internal evidence. 

I had intended to go into the Synoptical 
Problem, but I must pass over that. I 
would like to tell you the opinions they 
have about Matthew, about Mark, and 
about the other books, but it is not pos- 


sible now. They simply make the decla- 
ration that we have really nothing that 
our Savior said, not even in the Sermon 
on the Mount. It is simply an unhis- 
torical reproduction. 

In closing I thank you for your pa- 
tience, brethren. I simply wished to 
present to you the view that these men 
have. In the light of that view we can 
understand very well why they come to 
such conclusions—it is not at all surpris- 
ing; and until we settle those fundamen- 
tal questions, they will keep on grinding 
away, and finally nothing will be left. 

Many things have necessarily been 
omitted or barely touched upon in this 
discussion; but I think that you will 
agree with me, that enough has been 
said to show that the application of the 
principles of the Negative Higher Criti- 
cism to the New Testament, by the Mod- 
ern School of Critics, has neither been 
truly Critical nor in any proper sense 
Scientific. 





President Hall: In concluding this 
session of the Convention, if it is your 
pleasure to remain for a few minutes 
longer, I know we shall be greatly priv- 
ileged in listening to two short addresses. 
I would ask Prof. Jesse B. Thomas, 
D.D., LL.D., of Newton Theological In- 


ADDRESS OF PROF. 


stitution, Newton Center, Mass., if he 
will kindly step to the platform. He 
will be followed by Dr. Edward P. In- 
gersoll, of the American Bible Society. 

I am glad to introduce to you Professor 
Thomas, who will now take up the dis- 
cussion. 


JESSE B. THOMAS 


“Some Conditions and Changes Bearing on the Present Issue” 


I congratulate myself that I have not 
prepared any formal address for this oc- 
casion. I understood from the program 
that the “discussion” was to be an im- 
promptu commenting on what has been 
said by those who have prepared formal 
papers. Surely, what has been thus far 
said has been sufficiently elaborate and 
minute to make extended comment un- 
necessary. I will, however, allude to two 
or three points that suggest themselves 
in connection with some of these dis- 
courses. 

But before proceeding to their direct 
discussion let me allude to what seem 
to me to be 

I. Some peculiar conditions of the 
time affecting the question in hand, 


62 


I think it worth remembering that the 
Christian ministry of the day has 
fallen, or is rapidly falling, almost exclu- 
sively into the hands of very young men. 
Had that brilliant member of the British 
Parliament, who once so passionately de- 
fended himself against the “atrocious 
crime of being a young man,” lived in 
our day, the burden would have been 
found to have shifted: his defense must 
now be against the charge that he is no 
longer young—at least, if he be a minis- 
ter. It is true that men do not yet resort 
to novices in medicine to deal with their 
bodies; nor to allow experimenters in 
law to take care of their property; but, 
in the management of their souls, they 
seem to have concluded that age and ex- 


perience disqualify rather than commend. 
Now the young man, as yet unsobered 
by experience and personal observation 
of the mutability of even “scientific” con- 
clusions, is apt to be instinctively tempt- 
ed to over-confidence in, and adventur- 
ous utterance of, new opinions. Having 
a reputation to make, he is peculiarly 
sensitive to the remembered cautions of 
his instructors, not to “fall into ruts”; 
he is easily moved by the common senti- 
ment, and perhaps the fear of the con- 
tempt, of his ambitious classmates; he is 
keenly alert to know what will bring 
blame or praise from the secular press. 
He shrinks, therefore, with peculiar 
dread from the epithet “traditionalist.” 
Whatever else befall, he will not allow 
it to be suspected that he is ignorant of, 
or that he has failed to adopt, the “as- 
sured results” of the latest scholarship. 
He is tempted accordingly to reconcile 
himself with the scholarly zeitgeist, as 
he understands it, by passive, if not 
overt, assent to the new views. 

Another notable circumstance is the 
recently rapid growth of emphasis upon, 
and extension of range of, linguistic 
study, in our theological institutions. In- 
structors and courses of study in Hebrew 
and Greek and their cognate Biblical 
addenda, have multiplied surprisingly at 
the expense of the other departments of 
the theological curriculum. Expert ac- 
quaintance with Hebrew and Greek has 
become a generally recognized sine qua 
non for commendation to the churcnes as 
a suitably equipped candidate for the pul- 
pit. And in some institutions the ability 
to read Greek fluently is practically 
treated as an infallible test of the gen- 
uineness of a call to preach, since the 
applicant is refused permission even to 
begin his theological studies without it. 
So high an estimate of the relative place 
of linguistic skill in ministerial efficiency 
lends a factitious importance to those 
disturbing controversies concerning the 
origin and authority of the books of the 
Bible, which here interest us. They are, 
in fact, but incidental to the intelligent 
study of the languages themselves, yet 
they have become inextricably inter- 
woven with, and in our time virtually in- 


- 


separable from that study. To ignore 
them is to invoke the ready sneer of 
culpable ignorance of, or incompetence 
to appreciate, the modern methods of 
“Bible study.” 

Again, with increasing emphasis on 
linguistic technique, comes the call to 
more minute anatomical dissection and 
histological analysis of the text of Scrip- 
ture. This pains-taking and subtle art 
has come to its height in Germany. It 
is there that the white light of the old 
Book has been resolved into its poly- 
chromatic elements—by what may, in a 
double sense, be called (considering the 
number of spectres from E to P evoked 
in the process) a kind of spectral 
analysis. 

Now we all doubtless recall the old 
quip which in distributing fit fields of 
activity for each nation assigned to 
France the earth, to England the sea, and 
to Germany the air. Or, to refer to Sir 
Arthur Helps’ characterization, the 
Frenchman, if called upon to describe 
a camel would hasten to the Jardin des 
Plantes to study his subject there; the 
Englishman would pack his valise and 
hie away to the desert to find the crea- 
ture in its habitat; while the German 
would sit down calmly in his study to 
construct a camel out of his own con- 
sciousness. The German tendency to the 
speculative reconstruction of all things, 
is, in any case, unmistakable and uni- 
versally recognized. His world and his 
Bible are apt to go with his tobacco 
into the philosophic pipe, where all are 
alike sublimated into smoke. So long as 
these fantastic smoke-wreaths ascended 
within the lecture-room, there was little 
danger that they might be mistaken as 
anything more than unsubstantial crea- 
tures of the mind. The veteran Delitzsch, 
who in his later years yielded re- 
luctant and partial assent to some of 
these products of modern critical ingen- 
uity, earnestly protested against the at- 
tempt to popularize them—they were, for 
some time to come, to be treated as, at 
the best, the unverified guesses of ex- 
perimentalists—working hypotheses only. 
But it may be said of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, at large, as John Hall once said of 


the Yankee, when speaking of the impor- 
tation of the drink-habit from the old 
world—“It is a serious-minded race, im- 
porting nothing that it does not amplify 
and make practical.” Beginning with 
certain English scholars, who denounced 
it as cowardly not to announce boldly 
to the people, and propagate, the “as- 
sured results of criticism,” there has been 
a steady disposition to insist on the pop- 
ularization of the whole Hexateuchal 
scheme. This being undertaken, with 
whatever qualifications and reservations, 
by men whose ability, candor, and Chris- 
tian temper were above just suspicion, 
the effect upon the untechnical hearer, as 
well as upon the plastic and confiding 
student, has often been perplexing if not 
disastrous. 

Among the lectures constituting the 
first series delivered in Boston under the 
auspices of the American Institute of 
Sacred Literature, one was given by a 
man whose name is justly revered for 
his scholarship and whose personality is 
tenderly remembered as illustrative of 
Christian devotion. In his eagerness to 
encourage the introduction of the new 
conceptions of the Bible into Sunday 
’ School instruction he so emphasized the 
mythical quality of Old Testament nar- 
ratives, and so magnified the contradic- 
tions of the New Testament and the in- 
firmities of its style, as thoroughly to 
mystify his simple-minded hearers. One 
good lady next day remarked to her 
Bible class teacher that, while some of 
the hard stories of the Old Testament 
had once given her trouble, she now 
cared no more for their eccentricities 
than for those of A¢sop’s Fables. A 
bright young man in one of my classes 
had been called upon to read and report 
upon that passage in Theodore Parker’s 
writings in which he magnifies the au- 
thority of intuition as the final arbiter in 
religion—saying, substantially, “if any- 
thing in Scripture grates upon your in- 
stincts, re-examine it to see that it is 
susceptible of no fair reconstruction to 
which you can rationally agree; failing 
to find this, let the Scripture go and stick 
to your intuition.” The young man com- 
pleted his rehearsal of this advice, with 


64 


the statement that he perfectly agreed 
with the view expressed. When I sug- 
gested to him, that this theory would 
have brought serious trouble to Abra- 
ham, when called of God to sacrifice his 
son, his answer was instantaneous and 
conclusive: “I find no difficulty there; 
for I do not believe the Abraham inci- 
dent ever happened.” This confident and 
prompt avowal of disbelief was -unex- 
pected and surprising. I remembered 
the story of President Wayland, who 
when a member of one of his classes, 
met his psychological teachings with the 
question, “What would you say were I 
to tell you that, in coming down the 
street this morning, I had seen the op- 
posite lamp-posts leave their places and 
come waltzing down thé street to- 
gether?” “I should ask you where you 
had been, my son,” gravely replied the 
good Doctor. Asking a like question of 
the progressive young man in my class 
I was informed that he, too, had been a 
hearer of the lecture in question. It is 
not to be inferred or even suspected 
that the lecturer had any positively 
sceptical intent, or a fear that he would 
create any. But doubt is easy to create 
and hard to stifle: nor is it less danger- 
ous because inadvertently fostered. 
Tares once sown, by whatever hand and 
with whatever motive, grow apace. It 
would be better that they were left to 
be sown by “an enemy;” but the result 
is not less deadly if the band be that of 
a friend. 

Bearing in mind the plasticity of a 
young ministry, fresh from scholastic 
scenes and ambitions, the supreme em- 
phasis on linguistic proficiency as a 
credential of scholarship, the increasing 
reverence for, and dominance of, Ger- 
man methods, and the growing disposi- 
tion to popularize the supposed final con- 
clusions of the critics,— 

II. Let us notice some Specious and 
often Incongruous Results. 

1. The Substitution of a Critical for 
the Orthodox Tradition. 

My beloved and reverend friend Dr. 
Howard Osgood—one of the foremost 
Biblical scholars in America—has made 
plain in his unanswerable paper the iden- 


tity of the positions of the new critics— 
even the conservative section of them— 
with those of the rampant infidelity of 
a century ago. He might have gone fur- 
ther: for there is as pronounced a ten- 
dency to cyclic return of identical no- 
tions in the school of so-called “free 
thought,” as elsewhere. The sceptical 
“tradition” is more fragmentary and in- 
termittent, yet none the less real than 
that of orthodoxy. 

When Renan, a little while ago, sug- 
gested that the story of the Resurrection 
sprang first from the excited report of a 
hysterical woman, he was applauded as 
the inventor of a novel and ingenious 
explanation; but the theory is as old as 
Celsus in the second century. The au- 
thors of the “Essays and Reviews” 
created a sensation by insisting that the 
occurrence of certain alien words in 
Daniel makes it incredible that it should 
have been written at so early a date as 
commonly believed—an objection inces- 
santly reiterated by later critics; but 
Porphyry had made the same discovery 
and offered the same argument against 
authenticity in the third century. An 
influential educator and editor in this 
country had the temerity to make the 
published statement not long ago, that 
up to twenty-five years before, nobody 
had ever doubted that the “day” of Gen- 
esis was a period of twenty-four hours. 
He had surely failed to observe that Cel- 
sus, again, had ridiculed Moses for hav- 
ing spoken of “days” before the appear- 
ance of the sun; that Augustine, among 
others, noticing the difficulty, had de- 
clared the term to allude to a “day of 
God,” which could’ not be limited to 
twenty-four hours; and that one after an- 
other of the Fathers, as well as of the 
Medieval writers, had recognized the in- 
congruity and grappled with the diffi- 


culty of the twenty-four hour interpre-_ 


tation —a difficulty which lies open in 
the record itself, and which they must 
have been stupid indeed not to have ob- 
served, even if not compelled by the 
sneers of cavilers. 

Now let the young man, in the pulpit 
or the pew, who is afraid of becoming 
the bond-slave of “tradition” or human 


authority—who is charmed with the ex- 
hortation to “think things out for him- 
self’—observe that the moment he ven- 
tures to attempt the formation or utter- 
ance of an independent opinion as to the 
integrity or genuineness of any Scriptur- 
al document, he is certain to be con- 
fronted with the demand that he accept 
the verdict of the “world’s scholarship” 
as a finality in the premises. He may not 
meddle with matters that belong exclu- 
sively to “experts,” and upon which they 
have already reached an authoritative 
consensus of opinion. Instead of being 
set free from tradition, in this way, he 
has only been transferred from one bond- 
age to another. He must not, under 
penalty of ostracism from the realm of 
“scholarship,” accept the concurrent con- 
clusions of the Christian thinkers of the 
ages which have undergone the scientific 
test as “survivors” in the “struggle for 
life;” but he must, under the same pen- 
alty, accept as obligatory the arbitrary 
results of a headlong and as yet unveri- 
fied series of speculative flights of fancy! 

He must bow submissively to the “spe- 
cialist,’ forsooth. The “specialist” in 
what? Does the mastery of daghesh 
forte and the subscript iota forthwith 
give a man exclusive claim to precedence 
in all realms, scientific, historical, philo- 
sophical, and theological, as well as lit- 
erary? The very nature of his work as a 
specialist renders him less fit for the set- 
tlement of broader questions. No lawyer 
needs to be reminded that the testimony 
of the detective, or technical expert of 
any kind, is least credited by the common 
sense of the ordinary juryman. Such a 
witness has seen the facts through a 
theoretically narrowed or distorted eye, 
and, inadvertently or otherwise, reshaped 
them to fit his mental preconception. 
The enthusiastic exploration of verbal 
niceties does not fit for synthetic judg- 
ment of the whole. Who would choose 
a watchmaker, rather than a sailor, to 
scan the horizon and shape the vessel’s 
course? 

2. As to the recoil of the Higher 
Criticism upon the New Testament. 

We have been reminded, in the lucid 
and instructive paper of Dr. Wolf, of 


the auspicious advent, and early decay 
and vanishing, of the Tiibingen Theory. 
There is so close a parallelism between 
that theory and the Hexateuchal scheme, 
that the one may naturally have sug- 
gested the other. In both, an attack is 
made upon the historic verity of the 
sacred record by a like indirect route. 
Accepting the Pauline Epistles, in part, 
as genuine it was easily insinuated by 
Baur that there appeared upon their face 
evidence of an early Pauline and Petrine, 
Prophetic and Priestly, Doctrinal and 
Ritualistic, partition in the Church. 
Here was basis enough to formulate a 
theory of “tendency,” in rival writers, to 
reshape history for the support of one 
segment or the other or the reconcilia- 
tion of the two. All the historic docu- 
ments of the New Testament thus lost 
historic significance, and became cam- 
paign documents in which the facts were 
warped to suit the occasion. 

The same process has been followed in 
dealing with the Old Testament: only, 
now, some of the Minor Prophets have 
been arbitrarily fixed upon as exclusively 
reliable. From this coign of vantage 
there has been a like bombardment of 
- the historic books of the Old Testament. 
They, too, are said to have been “re- 
dacted” and the facts imaginatively re- 
shaped, or their borders enlarged with 
shifting prismatic colors, to suit the ends 
of “Priestly” or “Prophetic” contestants 
for mastery: so that they also are revela- 
tions of struggling “tendencies,” rather 
than veracious records of fact. Let us 
hope that as their spirit and method are 
identical, the already realized fate of the 
one theory may prove a true augury of 
the coming issue of the other. 

When the Kuenen-Wellhausen theories 
were broached in England, it was with 
the precautionary reassurance, that they 
could never be made to react upon the 
New Testament. The Old Testament 
was said to be out of historic reach, but 
the New Testament too impregnably for- 
tified by contemporaneous testimony to 
be historically discredited. Singularly 
enough, the application of destructive 
speculative canons to the Old Testa- 
ment was almost immediately followed 


66 


by the recovery of a clue to the sealed 
papyrus rolls of early Egypt, in the Ro- 
setta Stone; and by the uncovering of 
the clay tablets of Babylon and Nineveh 
with a speedy recognition of the Behis- 
tun Inscription as a key to the long hid- 
den cuneiform records in them. These 
events, with the later disclosure of the 
Tell El Amarna tablets, not only refuted 
the alleged impossibility of written rec- 
ords in Mosaic times, but showed an ad- 
vanced stage of civilization and inter- 
communication in those remote ages 
which seriously endangered the whole 
argument of the disintegrators. The 
work still goes on. “We have already 
dug up Homer; we shall yet dig up the 
Bible,” confidently said Professor Sayce. 

The Old Testament is fast becoming 
as accessible to contemporaneous tests 
as the New. The methods of speculative 
assault upon each being identical, it was 
inevitable that the wave of doubt which 
has advanced so far upon the Old, in 
spite of archeological countercheck, 
should return upon the New. We find 
accordingly a revival of sharp attack 
upon the central facts of the Gospel his- 
tory: the virgin birth, the literal resur- 
rection, the miracles, and the like. 
Those who cling to evangelical faith con- 
tent themselves with the bland assur- 
ance, that in all this only the concrete 
facts are jeopardized, but no essential 
doctrine. Do they forget the uniqueness 
of Christianity among religions, in that 
it alone rests on a historic foundation? 
Do they ignore Paul’s assertion that “if 
Christ be not risen our preaching is vain, 
and your faith is also ~.in?” Chris- 
tianity rests on foundatio..; of fact: and 
‘Sf the foundations be destroyed, what 
can the righteous do?” 

3. The Elusive Use of Terms in Con- 
nection with the Higher Criticism. 

Dr. Burrell and Dr. Booth have 
spoken eloquently and trenchantly of the 
disingenuous use of words in connection 
with the advocacy of the new theories. 
The peril, as well as the unfairness, of 
“paltering in a double sense,” can not 
be too earnestly emphasized. A certain 
preacher in Chicago was pastor of “the 
Church of the Messiah.” He averred in 


one of his sermons that Jesus was not 
the only Messiah; but that Moses, Isaiah, 
Paul, and Savonarola were each, in his 
time, equally Messiahs; Berthold Auer- 
bach being the Messiah of the nineteenth 
century. And yet he did not have the 
grace to inform his audience to which of 
‘these Messiahs his church was dedicated. 
One is reminded of Dr. Bushnell’s fa- 
mous tirade against “dictionary” bond- 
age in the preface of one of his works 
that had been criticized for its misuse 
of language and its disregard for logic. 
He averred that no assault upon his po- 
sitions reinforced by help of the diction- 
ary or logic would be of the least avail. 
He should disregard all such things ir 
the future, since his arguments would 
not be in the least damaged by being 
proved absurd. Dr. Charles Hodge un- 
dertook a reply in “The Princeton Re- 
view,” but with the disconcerting pref- 
aratory remark: “Why, Dr. Bushnell 
laughs at syllogisms as a ghost would 
at a musket!” H'e who uses words in a 
sliding or vacuous sense needs to be 
challenged, first of all, to throw off the 
mask of illusive speech, and “deliver him- 
self like a man of this world.” 

What is meant, for instance, by the 
claim that the Higher Criticism is, in its 
ultimate aims, “constructive?” Criticism 
is simply judgment; and judgment deals 
with an existing thing, approving it, 
modifying it, or repudiating it. Its func- 
tion is never creative. The alleged con- 
struction of the existing document is in 
too many cases the substitution of a 
wholly different record purely suppositi- 
tious in character. The actual testimony 
of the ancient writer is sublimated into a 
vaporous cloud: then out of the cloud the 
dextrous imagination of the critic evokes 
something which, he suggests, is “very 
like a whale,” and this phantasm of the 
brain ends the constructive process! 

Again, what is the force of the fre- 
quent invidious suggestion that this 
method of dealing with the text is in a 
peculiar, if not an exclusive, sense, “his- 
toric?” The historic method is primarily 
objective and inductive. If an alleged 
ancient title-deed or other document 
were presented in a court of justice, it 


67 


would be treated as prima facie genuine. 
But, if its genuineness were questioned, 
the normal appeal would be first of all 
to external circumstance as confirmatory 
or discrediting; whether it comes from a 
normal place of deposit, in whose hands 
the property rests, what does family his- 
tory or common tradition say, etc. It 
is only when discrepancies appear, or 
evidences of later alteration or addition 
are made clear, that the process of docu- 
mentary criticism (which is not in the 
proper sense historic at all) normally be- 
gins. Even then every intendment in fa- 
vor of the integrity and consistency of 
the document will be judicially indulged. 
But this order of inquiry, wrought out 
and confirmed as legitimate by the ex- 
perience of ages, is suddenly reversed by 
the method of to-day. It begins with 
the process of documentary analysis, and 
rests its judgment wholly on inferential 
conclusions therefrom. Professing to 
move inductively, it treads the “high a 
priori road” from the beginning. It ig- 
nores what is affirmed to have happened, 
in behalf of what, it is theoretically con- 
cluded, ought to have happened. In 
default of historically identifiable char- 
acters, to whom to attribute the disjecta 
membra of the dissected documents, it 
invents a list, lengthening with each new 
emergency. It thus dissipates the actual 
testimony into myth, and proceeds by a 
sort of irresponsible, oracular, literary 
divination to write a substitutionary doc- 
ument therefor. Were any lawyer to deal 
with the witnesses summoned, as some 
of the critics have dealt with the Evan- 
gelists (their, as well as our, only con- 
temporary witnesses), he would be 
laughed out of court. How would it 
sound for him to say to the jury: “These 
are the only witnesses in the case. But I 
ask you to dismiss most of their testi- 
mony as unreliable. Instead, thereof, let 
me suggest that you listen to my theory 
of the case, and allow me to reconstruct 
their testimony according thereto. It is 
true you will not then rely upon what 
they have said, but how much safer it 
will be to accept what an expert thinks 
they ought to have said.” 

Once more, what are we to under- 


| 


stand by the claim that higher criticism 
alone proceeds according to the “scien- 
tific’ method? That method requires us 
to accept the phenomenal as prima facie 
real, and to proceed inductively from 
facts near and known to the remoter and 
unknown. The Bible is itself a fact; it 
is inwoven with the web of the world’s 
history in a creative way; it lies at the 
heart of the literary and spiritual forces 
that move mankind to-day. It cannot be 
intelligently studied apart from these 
environing conditions and the pre- 
sumptions in its favor thereby engen- 
dered. 

It is wholly unscientific, then, to ig- 
nore these imperative preliminary con- 
siderations, and treat the Bible “just like 
any other book.” A book, for the per- 
manent certification of the origin of 
which the Jews have been so marvelous- 
ly preserved to a “life beyond life;” a 
book that has lifted that segment of the 
earth which we call Christendom to so 
marked exaltation above the rest; a book 
that has been the indisputable anteced- 
ent, if not the cause, of the highest 
phases of intellectual, ethical and politi- 
cal advance, and that still holds its place 


President Hall: The next speaker on 
the program will be Rev. Edward P. 
Ingersoll, D.D., of this city, Secretary 
of the American Bible Society. Dr. In- 
gersoll has returned from Great Brit- 
ain whither he went as the representa- 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. E. P. 


in the affections of the ripest peoples, 
and outtops the highest spiritual ideals 
of the twentieth century—cannot be thus 
ignominiously flung into the tide of pro- 
miscuous literature as “just like any 
other book.” 

Telescopy can get no justice while you 
regard the telescope as “just like any 
other brass;” and count the only legi- 
timate form of “study” of it to be chemi- 
cal analysis of its metallic constituents, 
or curious speculation based on the half- 
effaced name of its constructor. Would 
it not be more “scientific” to point it 
heavenward, and by its help get better 
vision of the stars? 

The new Jerusalem can never be meas- 
ured by a carpenter’s foot-rule; nor can 
mere linguistic or other technical trig- 
onometry ever gauge or fitly judge the 
nature or source of the written Word, 
which, as truly as the Incarnate Word, 
has proven itself irreducible to purely hu- 
man standards of measurement. Let the 
literary anatomist deal with his dead 
subjects. The dissecting knife is not the 
fit, much less the only fit, apparatus 
wherewith most effectively to “study” 
the Living Word. 


tive of The American Bible Society, at 
the Centenary of The British and For- 
eign Bible Society. He brings back a 
cheering report of the victories of the 
Bible during the past century and of 
the present outlook. 


INGERSOLL 


‘‘A Century’s Victories of the Bible’”’ 


It is reported that Voltaire once said 
that it took twelve men to found Chris- 
tianity, but that he would show the 
world how easily one man could over- 
throw it. He was confident that it would 
be overthrown by the new discoveries 
of that age and would not survive the 
century. Well, the Bible has gone on 
for a century, and Christianity still sur- 
vives and extends, and we believe that 
the house where Voltaire uttered his 
boast is now a depot for Bibles. Its ex- 
perience with Voltaire gives us courage 
in the new conflicts with error and unbelief. 


68 


Its experience in the conflicts of the past 
century, as I have recently heard it, is an 
inspiration to new faith and a higher 
courage. 

I am in hearty sympathy with the 
Bible League, because it has a conserva- 
tive and yet positive aim with regard 
to the Bible. Those who have asso- 
ciated themselves together as members 
of this -League thoroughly believe that 
we ought to say to our countrymen and 
to Christendom “We believe in the 
Scriptures as inspired of God and as the 
only infallible rule of faith in practise.” 


Like our fathers we are holding fast to 
the “Eternal Word.” 

We have not organized for contention 
with others, but rather that we may 
strengthen each other’s hands, and, if 
possible, be a help to great multitudes 
who are being disturbed by the destruc- 
tive criticism of these latter days. We 
wish to say to them that this is no new 
thing, but that the assaults upon the 
integrity of the Bible have, through the 
centuries, come frequently and in many 
guises. Some of us have seen the Bible 
“overturned,’ time and time again, and 
yet, after a little anxiety, we have found 
that it was a cube and stood on its solid 
base just as firmly as before it was 
“overturned.” 

The gentlemen who have spoken be- 
fore me, have drawn attention to the 
unscientific nature of Destructive Criti- 
cism. Permit me to add that I regard 
it as unfair as well as unscientific, be- 
cause it seeks to tear down the house in 
which I have been living before it pro- 
vides for me a better house to live in. 
I object to it again as being unfair be- 
cause, for the most part, the work is not 
done reverently. If I gave myseif to 
this destructive criticism, bearing down 
upon Genesis or Isaiah, or the Wonders 
of the Old Testament or the Miracles 
of the New, I am confident that my best 
friends would whisper to me, “You are 
not reverent.” I have a strong and 
steady conviction that every man who 
would be a thorough teacher of Bible 
lore, so as to discriminate between what 
is divine and what is human must 
have a very devout spirit. And be- 
yond this, ought it not to make every 
critic very cautious when he considers 
that there are a hundred different forms 
and statements in this Book which men 
are criticising? They stand up and con- 
fer together,—finally one says, “I do 
not criticise that book or that statement, 
but I criticise this book and this state- 
ment; another one says, “I criticise that 
which you approve and approve that 
which you criticise;” and so it goes on 
until scores of them have uttered their 
criticisms and you find, upon investiga- 
tion, that no two of them absolutely 


69 


agree. There are a hundred different 
roads of criticism, and, when you have 
gathered all of the critical scholars of 
the world together, you find a few going 
in this path, a few in that path, and a 
few in another path; while every one of 
these scholars affirms that there can be 
only one path that is right—and that 
his own. This thought ought to make 
us modest when we come to the criti- 
cism of a book that has endured the test 
of ages. 
THE GREAT BIBLE MEETINGS IN 
LONDON. 

I have been requested to say a few 
words in regard to the outcome of the 
Bible work in the last century. A few 
weeks ago I was in London, as the rep- 
resentative of the American Bible So- 
ciety, at the Centenary of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society. The story 
of what the Bible has done for mankind 
during the last century, as I heard it 
there, was an inspiration of faith. 

There were great gatherings: repre- 
sentatives of the royal family, distin- 
guished Christian ministers and laymen, 
scholars and business men—ten thousand 
and more—from the different Protes- 
tant denominations, twice in Albert 
Hall and once in St. Paul’s Cathedral. It 
was delightful and reassuring to note the 
enthusiasm in London and throughout 
the whole of England. There were 
magnificent audiences everywhere, and 
not a single note of discord was struck. 
It was the Bible, as the infallible rule 
of faith and practice, the whole Bible 
that was being honored as the means 
by which the Nations in darkness were 
being enlightened and lifted up into in- 
telligent and Christian manhood. One 
evening toward the last of March, I 
spoke to a large gathering, probably a 
thousand people, in Penrith, near the 
English Lakes. The meeting was not 
held in a church, but in a public hall. 
At the close, some one offered a resolu- 
tion which was substantially the state- 
ment of the aim of this Bible League. 
It looked to the Bible as giving the 
blessings of our civilization,—in other 
words, as being the light and comfort 
for time and for eternity. It was a 


popular gathering at which a distin- 
guished lawyer presided. When a rising 
vote upon that resolution was taken I 
did not see a single person remain seat- 
ed. One of the Secretaries of the Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Society, on the 
first Sunday in March last, went to 
Manchester and was advertised to speak 
about the Bible and the work it was do- 
ing in the world. The meeting was in 
the largest public hall in Manchester, 
seating four thousand people; it was 
crowded to the doors, and multitudes 
were obliged to go away because they 
could not gain admission. And it was 
all to hear the story of the Bible and its 
achievements from the lips of a man 
not especially known to them, who was 
to tell them of the work of the Bible in 
the world. 

At one of the great centennial meet- 
ings in London (Tuesday evening, 
March 8,) our Ambassador, Hon. Jo- 
seph H. Choate, stood on the platform 
in Queen’s Hall and gave a noble testi- 
mony to the power of the Bible in the 
early American life, and of its beneficent 
influence which continues still; and he 
said, amid great enthusiasm, “I believe 
‘that Britain and America are destined 
to carry this Bible, its liberty and its 
life to the earth’s remotest bounds.” 
There was none of the watchmaker busi- 
ness, of which Dr. Thomas just spoke, 
in the grand utterances of our Ambas- 
sador. 

Let me now come back to America, 
and assure you that my own observation 
and the testimony of many friends have 
convinced me that the pastors who have 
proclaimed themselves enthusiastic ad- 
herents to this critical spirit which is 
fastening upon the Bible, are not gain- 
ing in influence for good. I rejoice that 
there are multitudes of pastors who are 
holding fast to the form of sound words; 
are preaching the gospel with all enthu- 
siasm; are so preaching the Word that 


souls are converted, comforted and es- 
tablished. The church of which I am a 
member received 120 at its Communion 
in April, two-thirds of them upon pro- 
fession of-faith. I have been a member 
of that church for two years, and in all 
that time have not heard the pastor 
name “Higher Criticism,” or touch upon 
anything that verged toward it. He is 
preaching the Lord Jesus Christ and 
preaching Him with power, and strong 
men and multitudes of young men are 
coming into the church. How in con- 
trast is this with the case of a young 
minister with whom I spoke not long 
ago. I said, “Are you preaching Higher 
Criticism?” “Why, of course I am.” 
“Why?” “Because my people will think 
I don’t know anything if I don’t preach 
the Higher Criticism.” May he get over 
that idea of delusion and folly! 

But despite the skepticism and the criti- 
cism the Bible has been more and more 
shedding abroad its light for mankind. 
The American Bible Society in eighty- 
seven years has published 72,000,000 Bi- 
bles and portions of the Bible. The British 
and Foreign Bible Society in one hun- 
dred years has published 180,000,000 vol- 
umes. There were between forty and 
fifty languages into which the Bible was 
translated when the British and Foreign 
Bible Society was organized in 1804,— 
there are now four hundred and seventy- 
four languages and dialects into which 
the Bible and portions are translated. 
All of the centuries to the nine- 
teenth gave us less than fifty transla- 
tions; the nineteenth century has given 
us at least four hundred and thirty new 
ones, and we were never going forward 
so rapidly as now. Men are asking for 
this Book everywhere. “Give us the 
wonderful Book;” and all through the 
world it is transforming lives, it is trans- 
forming nations. Let us hold fast to it 
for it is the plinth that supports the 
glorious temple of truth. 





President Hall: I am going to ask 


Dr. Burrell if he will give us a closing 


hymn, and while he is selecting that 


hymn I will call your attention to the 
program for this evening. Under the 
Third Special Topic: “The Unscientific 


Character of the Prevailing Higher 
Criticism,” there will be an address on 
“Its Unscientific Treatment of the Facts 
of Scripture; or Misdirected Scholar- 
ship,” by Prof. G. Frederick Wright, 
D.D., LL.D., of Oberlin Theological 
Seminary, Editor of the “Bibliotheca 
Sacra.” He will be followed by Prof. 
Robert D. Wilson, Ph.D., D.D., of 
Princeton Theological Seminary, speak- 
ing for Oriental Scholarship; and by 
Rev. M. G. Kyle, D.D., of Frankford, 
Philadelphia, Pa., the well-known Egyp- 
tologist, representing Archeology. The 
concluding address will be delivered by 
Rey. Robert Mackenzie, D.D., of Rut- 
gers Riverside Presbyterian Church, of 
this city, formerly Professor in San 


Francisco Theological Seminary. Now, 
I am sure, there will be a real feast for 
all lovers of the Word of God, and I 
hope you will not only come yourselves, 
but bring your friends. 


Dr. Burrell: Let us sing hymn num- 


ber 370. 


“Come, O Creator, Spirit blest, 
And in our souls take up Thy rest.” 


President Hall: I would like to make 
a special request that all of the speakers 
at this afternoon’s session will meet here 
on this platform. 


After the singing of the hymn Dr. Bur- 
rell pronounced the benediction. 





Chird Special Topic: 


“THE UNSCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF THE PREVAIL- 
ING HIGHER CRITICISM ” 


WEDNESDAY EVENING SESSION, MAY 4 
8:00 P. M. President William Phillips Hall in the Chair 


Prayer by Dr. Burrell: We thank 
Thee, O God, for all the blessings of 
the day, for Thy manifest presence with 
us in Thy work. We thank Thee for the 
high privilege of service, for the delight 
of acknowledging ourselves to be labor- 
ers together with God. We thank Thee 
for the revelation of Thyself every way 
unto us. We glory in thy blessed Word. 
Be with us here to-night. Sanctify to 
us every moment ofthe hour that we 
shall spend together, and help us, we 
pray, to glorify Thee in all that we do 
and by what we say during the further 
sessions of this Convention; and follow 
it all with a watering from Heaven, “for 
Paul may plant and Apollos may 
water,” but Thou Thyself must, after 
all, bring about the increase. Bless the 
Truth; give it power, abundant power; 
and place us in the possession of truth 
with clear eyes and receptive hearts, for 
Jesus’ sake. Amen! 

We will sing— 

“A glory gilds the sacred page, 
Majestic like the sun.” 


71 


Turn to Psalm cxix. We have been 
reading over and over again in it. We 
will begin at Cheth, verse 57. 

(Responsive reading of the Psalm.) 

Dr. Burrell: Now, will Rev. Dr. Joach- 
im Elmendorf offer prayer. 

Prayer by Dr. Joachim Elmendorf: 
We bless Thee, O our Christ, that we 
are permitted to see this day. We bless 
Thee that Thy people have aroused 
themselves to the need of uttering their 
convictions as to the preciousness of 
this blessed Bible which Thou hast given 
us. We rejoice that there are so many 
of us that can testify that it speaks to 
our needs, that it speaks to our needs 
even in childhood, in youth, in young 
manhood; and when the inquiry went 
up from our lips, “Lord, what wilt Thou 
have me to do?” Thou didst then, out 
of Thy blessed Word, show us the way 
in which Thou wouldst have us walk. 
We bless Thee that Christendom is full 
of those who think they are called upon 
to testify to the preciousness, and the 
guiding power, and the saving power of 


this Word of the Living God. We know 
it is Thine, for we have had it speak to 
the depths of our souls. Oh, help Thy 
people to come together. Help them to 
unite in the testimony that shall con- 
vince the world that it is none other 
than the Word of God. Grant to bless 
this Convention. Raise up those that 
shall speak even as Thy servants have 
been speaking, to the convincing and 
comforting of men. And the men who 
have thought they have believed Thy 
Word, men who have thought they 
loved Thy Word, oh! help them to know 
more and more its preciousness and its 
power from the testimony of those who 
are speaking for it in this Convention. 
And we pray that Thou wilt carry for- 
ward this movement; give it increasing 
membership; give increasing devotion 
on the part of those who constitute the 
movement. Give it, we pray Thee, more 
and more of the manifest presence of 
God in the organization and in its prog- 
ress. Be with us this evening. Grant 
that all the words that are spoken may 
be prompted by Thy Holy Spirit, blessed 
by Thy Holy Spirit, and reach many 
minds and many souls with convincing 
.and comforting and saving power, for 
Christ’s sake. Amen! 

Dr. Burrell: Sing No. 77, 

“T love the volume of Thy Word.” 

President Hall: Despite the fact that 
it is prayer-meeting night in most of 
the city churches, you see that we have 


a splendid audience. We have had 
good audiences during all our sessions. 
We had as many here this morning al- 
most as we have at this present mo- 
ment. This afternoon we had a splen- 
did audience, and much enthusiasm was 
exhibited, and deep interest and heart- 
felt sympathy with the great matters 
that we have in hand; and now this 
evening we shall continue our program. 
One of the most attractive portions is 
to be presented in the addresses that 
are to follow before the close of the 
evening service. We shall aim to make 
the session as short as may be consist- 
ent with a proper handling of the burn- 
ing subject that is to be presented. 

It gives me especial pleasure to an- 
nounce the Third Special Topic under 
the General Topic, “Groundlessness of 
the Present Rationalistic Claims,’—the 
topic of the evening: “Unscientific Char- 
acter of the Prevailing Higher Criti- 
cism.” 

In the front rank among the scientific 
men of the present day is one whose 
standing as a scholar I do not think is 
questioned by any one,—who will ad- 
dress you on the subject of the evening, 
our good friend and beloved brother and 
honored colleague in this great work, 
Prof. G. Frederick Wright, D.D., LL.D., 
of Oberlin Theological Seminary, Edi- 
tor of the Bibliotheca Sacra. I have 
great pleasure in introducing Professor 
Wright. 


ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR G. FREDERICK WRIGHT 


“Unscientific Treatment of the Facts of 


I call attention at the outset to the 
fact that this is no talk on Higher Crit- 
icism in itself considered. In reading 
the program you will see that there is 
always an adjective before that phrase. 
We speak of the Rationalistic Higher 
Criticism; of the Destructive Higher 
Criticism; and in the subject announced 
for this evening, of the Prevailing 
Higher Criticism. We are speaking of 
a special department in a legitimate line 
of criticism; for we are all critics. It 
is our business, in the first place, to ex- 
amine, and that carefully, all the facts. 
The very first principle of science is to 


72 


Scripture; or, Misdirected Scholarship” 


know the facts in any region that is be- 
ing investigated,—to be sure of the facts. 
The whole scientific process consists, 
first, in observation, and next in ex- 
plaining and putting together those ob- 
servations, that you may increase your 
knowledge; and this we all do, or all 
profess to do. 

I have been powerfully impressed dur- 
ing the last few years, in the course of 
my studies, with what may be the pro- 
duct of our educational system, or of 
the neglect of those of us who have 
been teachers—I know not what—that 
certain fundamental principles of scien- 


tific investigation are being pretty large- 
ly overlooked by many who are writing 
on these subjects of Biblical Criticism. 
There is a very general tendency to 
start with a supposition, an interpreta- 
tion of the fact, an interpretation of a 
passage of Scripture, which may be 
plausible but may be wrong; and then 
go forward and reason upon that as 
though we had an established fact. It 
is to some things of this sort that I 
wish to call your especial attention. 


The Requirements of Inductive Science 


Now, the methods of science are pure- 
ly those of common sense. Inductive 
science is indeed nothing more than en- 
larged common sense. All our knowl- 
edge of the actual world is based on 
observation. But it is not confined to 
observation. We obtain our knowledge 
of the past by weighing evidence. We 
make our plans for the future by cal- 
culating the outcome of present forces 
which we know to be in operation. By 
reason of our ignorance of the forces in 
operation, our inferences concerning the 
past and the future are of every degree 
of uncertainty. To a considerable de- 
gree, thereore, all our knowledge both 
of the past and of the future is specu- 
lative; and in science as well as in re- 
ligion we all walk by faith, and not by 
sight. 

But it is a fundamental principle of 
inductive science that it makes the most 
of the facts of observation. Modern 
science differs from that of the Middle 
Ages pretty largely in this one thing, 
that it keeps as clear as possible from 
speculation which can not be restrained 
and guided by facts. So far as it can, 
it keeps in sight of land, and only ven- 
tures out upon the broad ocean when 
compelled to do so, and then proceeds 
with much misgiving and great caution. 

If a man comes into a scientific soci- 
ety and presents a theory without any 
facts to base it upon; if he has not added 
any facts from his own observation, so 
as to enlarge the scope of our reason- 
ing, he is at once turned down. He is 
called an a priori philosopher. 

So, this is the scientific principle with 


73 


which we start; and we shall see before 
we get through that is a very important 
one. 

Mr. Tyndall well nigh lost his repu- 
tation among scientific men when he 
left the solid facts of observation, and, 
with his mind’s eye, looking into the 
abysmal recesses of the infinite past, re- 
ported that he saw Shakespeare and 
Milton and Napoleon and Grant and 
Cuvier and Darwin emerging by natu- 
ral processes from the whirling fiery 
star-dust out of which the physicists 
suppose the earth to have been made. 
In that he was not speaking as a sci- 
entific man. H'e had no more business 
to talk upon that than a child ten years 
old had. It has been a very humiliat- 
ing thing to see the respect that we 
have paid to such a statement as that, 
a statement which almost discredited 
him with scientific men. 

Professor Huxley, who was a greater 
man by far than Tyndall, damaged his 
scientific reputation when, in spite of 
all the facts which he himself arrayed 
disproving the theory of spontaneous 
generation, he ventured out on the 
wings of faith, and declared that he 
believed that somewhere in infinite 
time, and amid the infinite changes 
through which matter has been called 
to pass, life with all its possibilities did 
somehow originate by a natural process 
from the material forces of the uni- 
verse. He strained our confidence in 
his scientific judgment still more when 
he endeavored to prove that both ani- 
mals and men are automata, doubting 
even that animals had any sensation of 
pain, and denying to man a free will. 
The picture of Huxley contending with 
the English bishops, and yet compelled 
by his theory to maintain that he had 
no free will in the matter, is in the high- 
est degree ludicrous! 

Herbert Spencer, who, apparently, has 
so much influence.upon popular writers 
of the present day, had no standing 
among the men of science. He made 
no investigations in science, as Tyndall 
and Huxley did. He was simply an a 
priori philosopher sailing out upon the 
boundless sea of unrestricted -specula- 


tion. And so he was looked upon by 
all the great scientific men of the world. 
It is philosophy, not science, that he is 
teaching. 

In the revulsion from this bald mate- 
rialism of the physical philosophers, 
many have gone over to the other ex- 
treme, and made so much of the imma- 
nence of God that they have lost sight 
of His transcendence. These have no 
need of troubling themselves about the 
origin of species, since, according to 
them, everything originates in the im- 
mediate action of the Divine Will. 
These need no historical evidences of 
Christianity and no specially inspired 
authors of the Bible, since every one 
is inspired, and there is no source of 
knowledge but the immediate breathing 
of the Almighty through the soul of 
man. 

But one thing is very certain, and this 
is one to which scientific men have 
called attention. It is this, that evolu- 
tion however far it may be applied in 
the material creation, does not apply in 
human history. When you come to 
man—and that is an argument that un- 
derlies very much of our reasoning con- 
- cerning the Bible and the Old Testa- 
ment—when you come to man you have 
no theory of evolution such as you 
think you have in nature. 

But what are the facts with which 
Biblical Science is concerned? 

The facts are that in Assyria, in Baby- 
lonia, in the Valley of the Nile, the fur- 
ther back you go the better was their 
sculpture. There has been a deterio- 
ration. No man can visit Egypt and 
not see the evidences of this deterio- 
ration. The Fellaheen of Egypt are 
descendants of the men who built the 
pyramids. What are they now? You 
can see to what an extent they have 
deteriorated. So you find in the up- 
ward progress of the world what we 
believe is not the result of what you 
call evolution; but it is, as clearly as 
can be the result of historical processes, 
the result of a revelation. We make 
a revelation to the heathen, that is, we 
carry the revelation which we have re- 
ceived; and our‘only hope and expec- 


74 


tation for the rise of the heathen na- 
tions is that the truth which we carry 
to them will be received. So as we go 
back,_from whom did our ancestors 
in Europe receive the truth that has 
made Europe and America what they 
are? They received it from Greece and 
Rome. And Greece and Rome re- 
ceived it from Egypt. And so, glanc- 
ing from one altar to another, this 
light has come down, and we have be- 
come the possessors of it. It was not 
by a process of Natural Selection. 

The Church is a Missionary Church, 
and the essential idea of it is, that a 
gift from Heaven has been bestowed 
upon us, and woe to us if we preach 
not the Gospel. We are taken into 
partnership with Christ. It is not an 
evolution by a natural and slow pro- 
cess; but it is a revolution when the 
Gospel comes into a heathen’s mind, 
when the Gospel acts on the soul, when 
it receives this Gospel of peace. 

Now, those are the facts, and when 
one reasons on any other theory, he 
reasons without his facts; and you can 
not bring that theory to have any 
weight with us in the matter of dis- 
cussing such problems as come before 
us in the Bible. Whatever evolution 
may have been in the forces below us, 
of earth and inanimate nature, it does 
not apply in this case. 

Now, this leads me to the point of 
great difficulty, and of great import- 
ance, namely, that the main facts upon 
which we should form our judgment 
concerning Christianity are within the 
reach of ordinary men: ninety-nine one- 
hundredths of all the evidence that bears 
upon that subject can be brought be- 
fore any man of common intelligence. 
The fault I have to find with the pre- 
vailing tendency is that it disregards 
all this main evidence, to concentrate 
attention upon getting a little additional 
evidence, and then rests the case wholly 
upon that. 

We are all of us, I say, critics. We 
are all out trying to find the truth. We 
do not feel we have attained all the 
truth, or got all the evidence in. But 
it is like the Parable of the Lost Sheep: 


we all want to get the one sheep that 
was lost upon the mountains. But, mark 
you, it says the other sheep were in the 
fold. It was not because they cared so 
much more for the one sheep than the 
others; but the others were safe. Now, 
the difference between the Conserva- 
tives and some of the Radicals is, that 
the Conservatives feel that they want 
to keep the ninety and nine in the fold, 
and then go out and see what they can 
do with the other one; but a great many 
of the Radicals open the gates and turn 
the ninety-nine out into the wilderness, 
and then go out and search for the one. 
That is the process that is going on. 

I will show you in a few minutes 
how it is that, abandoning the main evi- 
dences, they come to rest their whole 
case upon the straggling bits of evidence 
that had not all of them come within 
the reach of our minds heretofore. 


The Bible and the Critics Tested by 
Inductive Science. 


Now, the Bible in the fullest meas- 
ure endures all the tests of modern in- 
ductive science. It grants, yes, affirms, 
the existence of that material substra- 
tum of nature which modern physical 
science demands; while it lifts supreme, 
that directing agency of an all-compre- 
hensive Mind, of “whose existence we 
are assured in that life of feeling, 
thought, and will of which we are most 
immediately conscious. 

As a historical religion, Christianity 
places itself upon a scientific basis. The 
doctrines of Christianity are not bare 
speculations, but they rest upon facts, 
and are legitimate inferences from the 
most permanent phenomena in _ the 
world’s history. The tree is known by 
its fruits. The fruits of Christianity 
abound on every hand. There is the 
Church, with its ordinances, its insti- 
tutions, its sacraments, and its varied 
forms of life; there is its line of liter- 
ature, continuous from the Apostolic 
time; and there is its Sacred Volume, 
most marvelous in the variety of its 
interest and the sublimity of its con- 
tents. The Bible shines by no reflected 
light. It is a unity by itself. It is its 


75 


own best witness. With the vast major- 
ity of men, this remarkable literature 
constituting the Bible needs only to be 
seen to be recognized as a product of 
divinity. In this, as in every other case, 
seeing is believing. 

But we have fallen upon evil times, 
when the blind are trying to lead the 
blind. 

Many of the Biblical Critics who are 
obtaining a wide hearing are so afraid 
of the beaten paths, and so enamored of 
what is new, that they seem deliberately 
to choose the hardest road and the most 
obscure paths by which to attain the 
desired goal of truth. Reversing the old 
maxim that “whatever is true is not new, 
and what is new is not true,” they as- 
sume that nothing old is true, and noth- 
ing is true which is not new. Even so 
conservative a critic as Herman L. 
Strack, in so conservative a work as the 
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, begins his 
discussion of the authorship of the Pen- 
tateuch by protesting against the use of 
the passages in the New Testament in 
proof of the Mosaic authorship, on the 
ground that if they prove it, “all other 
proofs are superfluous and are a deroga- 
tion from the authority of our Lord, and 
that the use of such proofs removes the 
whole question from the historical and 
critical domain.” It is also noticeable, 
in the most recent volume of the late 
Prof. A. B. Davidson, on “Old Testa- 
ment Prophecy,” that, when discussing 
the authorship of the book of Isaiah, he 
makes no use of New Testament refer- 
ences, except to explain away two pas- 
sages from Paul’s epistles which imply 
that Isaiah was the author of the latter 
part of the prophecy attributed to him. 
Apparently he does not care publicly to 
face the question of Christ’s indorse- 
ment of the Isaianic authorship of the 
whole book, since he would be much 
more ready to attribute ignorance or an 
excessive use of the principle of accom- 
modation to Paul than he would to his 
Lord and Master Jesus Christ. 

This tendency to eliminate the testi- 
mony of the New Testament to the his- 
torical character of the Old Testament, 
is in principle like that of professedly 


discarding the original and best wit- 
nesses in the trial, and contenting 
oneself with the fragmentary evidence 
which can be picked up from later and 
hearsay witnesses. Upon the impro- 
priety of this course we have no diffi- 
culty in passing judgment in ordinary 
affairs. In legal matters we are familiar 
with what is known as the “statute of 
limitations,” which provides that if a 
title is not disputed before a certain 
time has elapsed, the question shall not 
again be reopened. The reason for this 
is that the time to challenge the primary 
witnesses to any fact is while they are 
still living and accessible. If one delays 
to adduce his rebutting evidence until 
the primary witnesses are dead or be- 
yond reach of ordinary effort, the pre- 
sumption is very strong that this delay 
is due to weakness in the evidence, 
which would be made manifest by the 
explanations of the primary witnesses. 
While it is not true that the principles 
underlying the statute of limitations 
should have unrestricted and absolute 
sway, it is true that it throws a very 
heavy burden of proof on those who 
come in with alleged new evidence long 
‘after the question has been settled, and 
endeavor to reverse the original decision 
based on contemporary evidence. Pos- 
session is not only nine points of the 
law, but is nine points of the evidence 
upon which we may properly base our 
belief concerning great historical facts. 
The Newtonian theory of gravitation 
is not overthrown by the fact that there 
are numerous anomalies in the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies which we 
are not able to explain. With the posi- 
tive evidence supporting the theory, it 
is sufficient for its advocates to show 
that these anomalies are possibly capable 
of being explained; thereby throwing the 
burden of proof upon the objector who, 
in order to maintain his case, is com- 
pelled to prove a universal negative. 
The main principles of geology are 
not proved false by adducing a great 
number of phenomena which are diffi- 
cult of explanation. The geologist is 
permitted to make almost any number 
of suppositions which do not violate the 


76 


principles of physical science to save a 
well-accredited theory. To account for 
his phenomena he is privileged to lift 
mountains and continents above the sea, 
and to invoke long eons of time and the 
action of an endless variety of causes 
which may have combined to produce 
the observed results. In no other effort 
of modern science to reconstruct the 
past is this more strikingly seen than in 
Darwin’s advocacy of the origin of 
species through natural selection, a 
theory which is well described as a 
series of “loopholes” and “may-bes” in 
which the difficulties are explained by 
reference to such things as “reversion,” 
“correlation,” “use and disuse of parts,” 
“direct action of external conditions,” 
and “spontaneous” variation. 

The believer in transmutation “can in- 
vent trains of ancestors of whose exist- 
ence there is no evidence; he can mar- 
shal hosts of equally imaginary foes; 
he can call up continents, floods, and pe- 
culiar atmospheres; he can dry up 
oceans, split islands, and parcel out eter- 
nity at will. Surely, with these advant- 
ages, he must be a dull fellow if he can 
not scheme some series of animals and 
circumstances explaining our assumed 
difficulties quite naturally.” 

Nobody was more willing to grant the 
abundance and strefigth of these objec- 
tions than was Mr. Darwin himself. In 
a striking letter to Sir Joseph Hooker 
he makes this admission, but comforts 
himself with the fact that he is not so 
open to criticism on that score as is 
Herbert Spencer. Commenting upon 
Spencer’s “Principles of Biology,” he 
says: 

_“T have now read the last number of 
H. Spencer. I do not know whether to 
think it better than the previous num- 
ber, but it is wonderfully clever, and I 
dare say mostly true. I feel rather 
mean when I read him: I could bear, 
and rather enjoy, feeling that he was 
twice as ingenious and clever as myself, 
but wher I feel that he is about a dozen 
times my superior, even in the master 
art of wriggling, I feel aggrieved. If 
he had trained himself to observe more, 
even if at the expense, by the law of 
balancement, of some loss of thinking 


power, he would have been a wonderful 
man.” 


Nevertheless, he tenaciously heid on 
to the main proofs of his theory, con- 
tenting himself with the belief that all 
the objections might be explained away. 

Without affirming or denying the truth 
of Mr. Darwin’s theory, we can say 
most emphatically that his method is 
scientific. The only question would be 
whether his main arguments are as con- 
clusive as he supposed. 

It is thus, that, from the beginning, 
the Christian Church has in a truly 
scientific manner held on to the central 
facts of Christianity and guided itself 
by the clearest light which shines out 
from the Bible. The central fact from 
which the life of the Church has sprung 
is Christ’s resurrection from the dead. 
Around that central fact is gathered a 
mass of historical evidence which is al- 
most superabundant in its amount, and 
of such a character as to satisfy the 
most scrupulous stickler for legal and 
scientific evidence. To the legal mind 
there is the appeal of the report to 
Pilate by the regular officers, whose 
business it was to carry out his com- 
mand, that Jesus was really dead. To 
Professor Huxley, who asked for a post- 
mortem examination, we can reply, that 
there was such an examination. The 
thrusting of the spear into the side of 
Jesus fulfilled every requirement of a 
post-mortem examination. Christ’s 
emergence from the tomb was not the 
resuscitation of a man who had fallen 
in a swoon, but was a real resurrection 
from the dead. 

The witness to this resurrection is so 
varied, so inartificial, and so thoroughly 
wrought into the life of the Primitive 
Church, that it can not be resisted, ex- 
cept by doing violence to every prin- 
ciple of reason upon which the ordinary 
affairs of life are regulated. 

With the establishment of the resur- 
rection of Christ there goes, by a simple 
and easy process, the establishment of 
the truth of the whole New Testament. 
There is such a general congruity in the 
story of Christ’s supernatural birth, His 
brief period of miraculous activity, 
when, besides doing what no man could 
do, He spake as no man ever spake,— 


77 


there is, I say, such a congruity between 
these recorded incidents of His life and 
the nature and work ascribed to Him 
and the marvelous results effected by 
Him in the life of the Church, that it is 
impossible, with the facts clearly in 
mind, to resist the conviction that the 
New Testament is, in the main, a gen- 
uinely authentic account of the life and 
work of our Lord and Master. The 
New Testament embodies the whole cir- 
cle of facts out of which sprang the life 
of the Christian Church. In the course 
of a Providence before which we can- 
not but stand in awe, what we have in 
the Gospels and Epistles was preserved, 
and no more. Not a dozen sentences 
outside of these books tell us anything 
which we can reasonably believe con- 
cerning the words and acts of our Di- 
vine Lord and Master. 

Such a historical document deserves 
at least the respect which the scientific 
man gives to the central facts upon 
which he bases his theories. In ref- 
erence to the Bible we speak of it 
as the reverence due to a highly quali- 
fied and well-established authority. But 
reverence has well nigh disappeared 
from a considerable portion of our mod- 
ern Biblical critics. Instead of asking 
whether an interpretation of an obscure 
passage may be explained in accordance 
with the clearer passages, they ask, Can 
it possibly have an interpretation which 
will make it conflict with the clearer 
passages? 

We have an example of this in the 
persistent effort made by a large num- 
ber of prominent commentators and 
Biblical critics to make the world believe 
that there is a plain contradiction be- 
tween the fourth Gospel and the other 
three Gospels in their statements con- 
cerning the time at which Jesus ate the 
last Passover with His disciples. Scien- 
tific common sense would say that an 
unexplainable discrepancy between such 
documents should not be assumed if 
there was any reasonable way of har- 
monizing them. 

The first three Gospels affirm with 
great clearness that this Supper was 
eaten before the arrest and trial of 


Jesus; whereas the fourth Gospel af- 
firms that early in the morning, while 
the trial was in progress, the Jews de- 
clined to enter Pilate’s judgment hail, 
lest they should be defiled so that they 
could not eat the Passover. Now there 
are two very natural suppositions which 
can be made, either of which wouid re- 
move this apparent discrepancy, and 
leave the credit of the documents unim- 
paired. 

1st. It may have been, and probably 
was, so early in the morning that the 
priests could regularly eat the Passover 
in the strictest sense of the word before 
sunrise. 

2d. The phrase “eat the Passover” be- 
longs to that elastic class of expressions 
that make it apply to the concluding 
portions of the festival that follcwed 
during the day up to the next evening. 

Besides, it is susceptible of proof that 
while this defiling would have prevented 
them from taking part in the minor 
closing festivities, it was not such as 
would have absolutely prohibited them 
from partaking of the paschal lamb upon 
the evening following. From such a 
defilement they could easily free them- 
-selves before the close of the day. 

Now we submit that the commentators 
and critics, who insist upon a contradic- 
tion in the face of such an easy recon- 
ciliation, are ignorant of the simplest 
rules of evidence which prevail in courts 
and in all well-informed scientific cir- 
cles. Yet this is only a specimen of the 
false reasoning which is being forced 
upon the guileless public and labeled as 
the product of the new science of Bib- 
lical criticism. But instead of being 
new, it is as old as Celsus, and the fal- 
lacy of the method has been made clear 
to every generation until the present, 
and now we have to go painfully over 
the same ground again and give line 
upon line and precept upon precept. 

We have time simply to enumerate a 
few of the cases parallel to the one al- 
ready mentioned. 

The author of the third Gospel can be 
shown by innumerable lines of evidence 
to be a writer who was exceptionally 
well informed upon all matters of local 


78 


history and geography. In so many 
cases have his questionable statements 
been confirmed from unexpected 
sources, that, aside from the question 
of inspiration, he has come to have the 
reputation of a first-class witness. Yet 
so hard is it for modern critics to believe 
that he has made no mistake, that they 
insist with inordinate vigor in affirming 
that in those instances where the facts 
depend wholly upon his statements he 
not only may be wrong, but he must 
be wrong. One of the most prominent 
professors of New Testament Greek 
adduced as one of his principal argu- 
ments for the fallibility of the writer, 
that in Acts v.36 Gamaliel is made to 
refer to an impostor by the name of 
Theudas, who had come to grief some- 
what before his time, during the reign 
of Augustus. But, because Josephus 
mentions a Theudas who ran a similar 
career fifty years later, in the time of 
Claudius, it is assumed that Luke must 
have made a mistake. It would seem, 
however, to be a very plausible suppo- 
sition that there may have been two 
Theudases; for such repetition of names 
and careers is by no means unusual. 
Josephus himself mentions four Simons 
within forty years, and three Judases 
within ten years, who were all instigat- 
ors of rebellion. To insist upon fas- 
tening an error upon a credible witness 
on so flimsy a basis as this is certainly 
not scientific. Darwin would count him- 
self fortunate if he could save his theory 
by a “wriggling” which was ten times 
more violent than this. 

Similar remarks could be made con- 
cerning the absurd ideas attributed to 
Biblical writers by prominent commen- 
tators and critics, through imposing 
upon the words of Scripture meanings 
which by no means necessarily belong 
to them. Thus a prominent theological 
professor accuses Paul of “almost re- 
senting the idea” that the Mosaic leg- 
islation which prohibited the muzzling 
of an ox while treading out the corn 
“meant what it says;” and this because, 
forsooth, in an impassioned exhortation 
to the early disciples properly to care 
for those who ministered to them in 


4 


wee My 


spiritual things, he exclaims, “Is it for 
oxen that God careth, or saith he it al- 
together for our sake? Yea, for our 
sakes it is written.” This spectacle of 
one who is set up to be a teacher of 
the people being so unable to under- 
stand a rhetorical expression, does not 
augur well for the intelligence of the 
rising generation of ministers. And yet 
illustrations of the same sort can be re- 
peated without number. 

Turning for a2 moment to the inter- 
pretation of the Old Testament which 
is coming to be prevalent, we find the 
same unscientific mode of procedure in 
even more aggravated form. Not only, 
as we have already seen, is the testi- 
mony of the New Testament to the Old 
Testament ignored, but the chief wit- 
nesses iu the New Testament are set 
aside with a flippancy that is as shock- 
ing to one’s nerves as it is discreditable 
to the critics. I have heard a prominent 
professor in an orthodox theological 
seminary affirm that Paul as an inter- 
preter of the Old Testament was un- 
worthy of consideration; that if any 
modern exegete should make such egreg- 
ious mistakes in interpretation as Paul 
made he would be speedily recognized 
as unfit for his position. 

But, coming to facts nearer at hand, 
a number of the recent books written 
by leading professors in orthodox theo- 
logical seminaries, to reconstruct and 
reverse Old Testament history, begin 
their work by wrenching the first verse 
of the second chapter of the book of 
Genesis from its proper place, and pre- 
fixing it to the first chapter, where it 
does not belong. This they do in order 
to defend their theory, resiing upon a 
doubtful interpretation of a Hebrew 
tense, that the first chapter of Genesis 
and second chapter contain contradic- 
tory accounts of the creation. Coming 


to the account of the marriage between 
the sons of God and the daughters of 
men, they make it ridiculous by assign- 
ing an interpretation to the phrase “sons 
of God” which was alien to Jewish ideas, 
and which has little to support it, either 
in the nature of the phrase or m the 
nature of the case. 

And so on to the end of the chapter, 
the main things are overlooked, and the 
flyspecks are magnified, and we are pre- 
sented with a theory of the scheme of 
salvation which runs counter to the 
whole current of revelation and of his- 
tory, and has no support except what 
comes from an obsolete, incorrect, and 
unphilosophical theory of evolution; fdr 
it is as clear as day that, apart from the 
positive revelation of the Bible, there 
has been no continuous upward stream 
of tendency towards higher and better 
things in the experience of mankind 
When left to himself, man has every- 
where been on the down grade. The 
world is strewn with the wrecks of the 
nations that forgot God. Apart from 
the influence of the first chapter of 
Genesis, monotheism has never main- 
tained itself in the world. The upward 
tendency of mankind is due to the ef 
forts of 2 chosen people, who have had 
a mission from God to the world. The 
Church of the present day is walking in 
the steps of Abraham, its great fore- 
runner. It hopes for the regeneration of 
the world through the blessing of the 
Holy Spirit upon the truth which it pro- 
claims. That truth is not new but old 
Its cornerstone is Christ. Christianity 
is not the product of the natural man, 
but it is a gift from heaven, committed 
to our keeping, and woe be to us, and 
woe to the world, if we preach not the 
gospel in all its fullness as a supernat- 
ural revelation supported and enforced 
by all the powers of heaven. 





President Hall: The next address will 
be given by Professor Robert Dick Wil- 
son, Ph.D., D.D., of Princeton Theologi- 
cal Seminary, whose attainments and 


position entitle him to speak as a rep- 
resentative of Oriental Scholarship. His 
studies have specially fitted him to dis- 
cuss the theme he has chosen. 


ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR ROBERT DICK WILSON 
“Groundless Attacks in the Field of Oriental Scholarship” 


As the time allotted to me is limited, 
I shall speak merely upon the ground- 
lessness of certain of the attacks made 
upon the Scriptures in the region of 
paleography and philology. 

But before plunging into my subject 
let me state that in my opinion the only 
way in which the conservative party can 
maintain its position in the field of 
Biblical criticism is by showing that the 
premises of the radical critics are false; 
by showing, through a more thorough 
investigation of the facts, that the 
foundations upon which the magnificent 
structures of the radical critics rest are 
indeed groundless, unscientific and illog- 
ical, unproven and often incapable of 
proof. 

The Attack in the Field of Paleography 

1. I remark that many of the premises 
of the radical critics are fallacious, be- 
cause of assumptions based upon an un- 
justifiable use of the vowel letters and 
signs, 

It is a point admitted by writers of all 
schools, that the vowel points of the 
Massoretic text were not fixed till some 
centuries after Christ. A study of the 
variants of the Hebrew MSS. will show 
further that there is scarcely an internal 
vowel letter that has been invariably 
written either fully or defectively. The 
omission of all internal vowel letters (as 
well as vowel signs) is shown conclu- 
sively, also, on the inscriptions of the 
ancient Phenicians, Aramzans, Moabites 
and Hebrews. Now, in view of these 
facts, what do you think of arguments 
like the following? 

Wellhausen says (on page 389 of his 
History of Israel), that 

Za-kar; “male” is in earlier times 
Za-kur; for this is the writing of 
Ex. xxiii. 17; xxxiv. 23; Deut. xvi. 16; 
xx. 13; and if it is right in these pas- 
sages, as we can not doubt it is, it must 
be introduced in Ex. xxxiv. 19; Deut. 
xv. 19; I K. xi. 15, seq., as well. In the 
priestly code, Za-khar occurs with great 
frequency and elsewhere only in the later 


literature, Deut. iv. 16; Is. Ixvi. 7; 
Judges xxi. 11, 12, etc.” 


You all see, that if the vowels did not 


80 


exist in the original text, that the docu- 
ments of the original text can not be dis- 
tinguished by the vowels of that text. 

2. The second paleographical assump- 
tion arises from wilful changes made in 
the consonantal text, 

By wilful changes, I mean those for 
which there is no evidence in MSS., or 
versions, or paleography, or the monu- 
ments. The worst sinners in this respect 
are Professors Klostermann, of Kiel, 
and Cheyne, of Oxford. 

In his latest work, Biblia Critica, just 
coming out, Prof. Cheyne attempts to 
reconstruct the text of the Old Testa- 
ment on a theory so incredible, so en- 
tirely without any foundation in facts, 
historical and textual, that it seems to 
me, to surpass all the groundless theories 
that have before been proposed. 

Did you ever hear of the Jerahmeelites? 
They are mentioned once in the Bible 
and their progenitor Jerahmeel once also. 
Now could you believe it possible that 
a professor in Oxford would attempt to 
string the whole text of the Prophets 
and Histories of the Old Testament upon 
the thread of this word, which he has 
inserted times almost innumerable in the 
four parts of his work already published? 
One can not but wonder, whether Pro- 
fessor Cheyne ever expected anybody to 
accept as fact these fanciful reconstruc- 
tions of his. I can perceive how the 
radical critics might in despair give up 
all attempts to reconstruct the original 
text of the Scriptures; but I can not un- 
derstand why they do not, one and all, 
perceive that any attempt to reconstruct 
the text out of their own heads, is 
doomed to failure. One Oxford Profes- 
sor tried to reconstruct the original He- 
brew text of Ecclesiasticus, by re-trans- 
lating it from the Greek and Syrian ver- 
sions. When the original Hebrew text 
was found, his text agreed with the orig- 
inal in only three places out of too! 

Would you like to have a sample of 
Professor Cheyne’s method? On page 
135, he asserts that “corruptions based 
on transpositions are common;” and 


a 


hence he changes the word tomekh into 
maakhath. But notice: (1) That there 
is no MS. nor version, that supports 
this change; and (2) that such transpo- 
sitions can not, comparatively speaking, 
be called common. For the past fifteen 
years I have been making a collection of 
such transpositions for which there is 
authority in the MSS., parallel passages, 
versions, or critical editions (including 
large parts of the Polychrome Bible), 
and so far my list counts sixty-four ex- 
amples in all. When you consider that 
these examples are collected from the 
whole Bible, and that the consonant let- 
ters in the Bible number about 1,200,000, 
you will perceive that these changes 
number about one in 18,000 from all 
sources whatsoever. But (3), even if the 
instances of simple transposition were 
much more numerous, what Professor 
Cheyne claims in the case before us, is 
not a simple transposition of two let- 
ters; but the Ist is made the 4th, the 3rd 
the Ist, the 4th the 3rd, and the 2nd is 
changed from one letter to another, 
which it resembles in no Semitic alpha- 
bet as yet discovered! 

3. The third paleographical assump- 
tion arises from ignorance of the He- 
brew, or from a misunderstanding of 
some version of it. 

Some critics are always on the lookout 
for variants. When they do not see the 
connection in meaning between the He- 
brew word and its version, they jump at 
the conclusion that there has either been 
a change in the original or that the trans- 
lators have misunderstood their text. 

An example of what I mean is to be 
found in 1 Sam. xiii.6, when the Book 
renders the Hebrew word by a word 
meaning “grave.” Ewald, the great critic 
of the middle of the last century, asserted 
that the Hebrew word here used did not 
mean “grave,” but “tower;”’ and, hence, 
many critics rejected the Hebrew text, 
because, they said, people do not hide in 
towers, and generally adopted the Greek 
version as giving the true meaning. 
Klostermann proceeds to reconstruct the 
Hebrew text by changing the present 
Hebrew word to another one which 
means “sepulchres.” Now the fallacy here 


81 


lies in assuming a variation where there 
is none. The Greek is right in having 
the word for “grave.” The Hebrew word 
found in the text also means “grave.” If 
you would look in the Arabic dictionary 
you would find the exact philological 
equivalent of the Hebrew used ordinarily 
in the sense of “grave.” The variation is 
the figment of the critic’s imagination. 
And the persistence in claiming that 
there is a variation is one evidence 
among many that there is a traditional 
interpretation among the radical as well 
as among the conservative critics. 

4. But the most groundless of all of 
the assumptions of the radical critics 
with regard to the text of the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures is that the text, as it 
emerged into historic times, had already 
been so changed from its original form 
as to be utterly unrecognizable by its 
own composers. 

Yet what convincing evidence is there 
to prove that such radical changes were 
ever made in the original text of the Old 
Testament? None whatsoever, except 
an analogy derived from the Egyptian 
and Babylonian liturgies and legends. 
No trace of any such radical changes can 
be found in the parallel portions of the 
Old Testament, nor in any statements 
of the Scriptures, nor in any tradition of 
the Jews. On the contrary, so far back 
as we can go with MSS. and versions 
(i. e., to 200 B. C.), the evidence is over- 
whelming and convincing, that in general 
no changes, even in sporadic cases of 
consonantal letters, have been made in 
the text of the Old Testament; except 
such as might occur in the copying or 
translating of any document, especially 
one of a long past age. The Egyptian 
papyri, recently discovered and pub- 
lished, some of them more than 2,000 
years old, show that some of the frag- 
ments of the Classics differ by not a sin- 
gle letter from the texts of the ordinary 
text-books now used in the preparatory 
schools. No evidence has yet been 
found in support of a tendency theory on 
the part of either copyists, or translators, 
of the Old Testament, except, perhaps, 
in the case of two or three books of the 
LXX., and in a few changes in the Tar- 


gums. Such tendency theories are an- 
other creature of the critics’ imagination, 
The only tendency theory that the au- 
thors of the Old Testament Scriptures 
recognize is that which tends from the 
Paradise of the fall to the Cross of 
Calvary, and from the Cross of Calvary 
to the Paradise of the redeemed. 

The Attack in the Field of Philology. 

In the second place, the groundless- 
ness of the radical attack may be shown 
in the field of philology. 

1. The first of the many false assump- 
tions are those made as to the meaning, 
the origin, and the use of words. 

Time forbids that I should mention 
more than one or two examples of these 
kinds of assumptions. Their wide-reach- 
ing character can be judged, however, 
from one as well as from many examples, 

Let us take the Aramaic word for 
King as an example of a false assump- 
tion based on the meaning of a word. 
Belshazzar, as you know, is said in the 
Aramaic portion of Daniel to have been 
king of Babylon. Now, inasmuch as the 
monuments do not state that Belshazzar 
was ever king in the sense that Neb- 
uchadnezzar and Nabonaid were, it has 
been assumed that he could have been 
king in no sense at all. 

To harmonize the monuments with 
Daniel, it is only necessary to remember 
that the Aramaic word mal-kah, “king,” 
is equivalent to two, or more, words 
found in the Assyrio-Babylonian or He- 
brew. In the Aramaic, the word mal- 
kah, “king,” is used, not merely of the 
emperor of the Greeks, and of the shah- 
in-shah, the king of kings, the king of 
Persia; but also of the mayor of a city 
or of a village, or of the chief of a tribe. 
Belshazzar may have been king of the 
city of Babylon, while his father was 
king of the land. 

The second word which I shall men- 
tion illustrates the fallacies based upon 
false assumptions as to the origin and 
use of words. I shall take the familiar 
New Testament word korban, “a gift.” 
Wellhausen asserts that this word is a 
late importation into the Hebrew from 
the Aramaic; that it occurs nowhere in 
the Pentateuch, except in the Priestly 


82 


Code; and that its presence there is an 
evidence of the late date of that work. 
Now, inasmuch as both the root and 
the derivative are found in Arabic and 
Assyrio-Babylonian, as well as in He- 
brew and Aramaic, is it not most prob- 
able that both root and derivative were 
used by the primitive Semites; and, 
hence, that in their use there is no in- 
dication of derivation, or date? Well- 
hausen, at least, gives no evidence except 
his mere assertion that the Hebrews de- 
rived the word from the Aramzans. 

2. The second philological assumption 
is that the date of books can be deter- 
mined from the use of sporadic forms 
and of once-written words, to many of 
which the indefinite term “Aramaism” 
is applied. 

But notice, first, that as to the relations 
existing in early times between the He- 
brews and the Aramzan peoples, aside 
from the statements of the Scriptures, 
we know absolutely nothing. So far as 
Aramaisms are concerned, there are no 
conclusive grounds for asserting that a 
book like Ecclesiastes must have been 
written in the age of the Maccabees 
rather than in that of Solomon. A large 
proportion of the words which even con- 
servative critics supposed a few years 
ago to be Aramaisms, can now be shown 
not to be necessarily such at all. In 
Keil’s “Introduction to Ecclesiastes,” 
about half of the most important words, 
which he classes as Aramaisms, are found 
in Arabic and Assyrian as well. The pre- 
sumption is that they are all from primi- 
tive Semite roots and that they might 
have occurred in any book which was 
written at any time in the history of the 
Hebrews, or of any other Semitic people. 

3. The third philological assumption 
lies in the contention that the employ- 
ment of certain words rather than others 
implies a difference of author, or date, 
rather than a difference of idea to be 
expressed, or a different way of express- 
ing the ideas. 

This assumption lies at the basis of the 
divisive hypothesis of the Pentateuch. 
Without going into a discussion of the 
words for God, about which there is so 
much that is disputable, let us take the 


— 


ver 


ee ls 


word “subdue” [Note qa-vash] as an 
example of the fallacy that diction alone 
is an indication of a separate document, 
or a different author. This word is said 
to be indicative of P. If this were so, 
if a characteristic of P lies in the word 
here used, we should expect to find J 
or E using some other word to express 
the idea “subdue.” As a matter of fact, 
however, we find no word for “subdue” 
in either J or E. J, to be sure, uses twice 
a verb “to bow down.” [Note ka-ra‘], 
which in the causative means “to sub- 
due.” A third word, the causative of the 
word “to humble” [Note ka-na‘], is 
used once in P and once in D. The two 
other words used in Hebrew to denote 
the idea of subduing [Note da-var and 
ra-dad], do not occur in the Pentateuch. 

It will thus be seen, that of the five 
Hebrew words meaning “subdue,” P em- 
ploys two (of which D once uses one); 
but J and E never use any one of the 
five. Any difference, therefore, between 
P and JE is one of idea and not of words 
to express the idea. Nor could anyone 
maintain, that either the word or the 
idea may have been unknown to the 
writers of J or E. The Hebrew word 
for “subdue” found in Genesis I. is 
found, also, in Assyrio-Babylonian, Ara- 
maic and Arabic. Hence, it may be as- 
sumed, in the absence of all evidence to 
the contrary, to have belonged to the 
primitive Semitic language; and, if it be- 
longed to the primitive language, there 
is no reason why it may not have been 
used at any time in the history of any 
one of its descendants. That the idea 
expressed by the word “subdue” may 
have been unknown to the authors of J 
or E, is a supposition which, in view of 
the endless subjugations of nature and 
man revealed by the monuments and lan- 
guages of ancient nations, is too prepos- 
terous for sober discussion. 

In the second place, a difference of 
words, involved inthe same general idea, 
does not necessarily imply a different 
author, nor a separate document; but 
may rather imply a fine discrimination 
of synonyms, or a slightly different way 
of expressing the same idea. Take, for 
example, the words for “likeness,” 


83 


“form,” etc. P alone used the words 
“image” (shadow) and “likeness” [Note 
tse-lem and d’mooth]; but only in 
Gen. I. and V. P and D both use “pat- 
tern” (form or build [Note tav-neeth], 
D and E use the word for “form.” 
[Note t’moo-nah a word of unknown 
origin and doubtful meaning.] Now, if 
a difference of words to express the same 
general idea implies a difference of au- 
thorship or document; we would here 
have three P’s and two D’s, and the as- 
sumption would be that no author can 
ever use a synonym. But, if they ex- 
press simply a different shade of mean- 
ing under the same general idea, their 
use is no indication of separate docu- 
ments or different authors. Whichever 
horn of the dilemma the critic takes, he 
stands to fall. 

4. The fourth and last philological as- 
sumption that I shall mention is that 
made by Frederich Delitzsch and others 
when they assert, without any sufficient 
evidence from the vocabulary, that the 
Hebrews derived their religious ideas 
from the Babylonians. 

Two years ago, I made an exhaustive 
comparative study of the vocabularies of 
the four great Semitic languages, espe- 
cially of the words found in Hebrew and 
Babylonian, with the following result: 
I found that while there were many 
words common to all the Semitic lan- 
guages; that these words were most 
common in the lower spheres of life; 
and that, as you rise from the physical 
and phenomenal to the mental and re- 
ligious spheres, the similarities of the 
vocabularies become less and less; until 
when you come to the highest sphere of 
all (the doctrines of God, sin, grace, 
pardon, salvation, faith, the Messiah, 
and the kingdom of God), the vocabular- 
ies have become largely distinct, and the 
ideas in great measure dissimilar. 

To those who would magnify the in- 
fluence of the ancient Babylonian upon 
the ideas of the Israelites, let me empha- 
size the fact, that the stories of the 
creation and the flood, the belief in the 
existence of angels, the observance of a 
Sabbath, and the use of sacrifices and of 
the name Jehovah (one or all of which 


are certainly found in the monuments 
to have prevailed in the age of Abra- 
ham), do not invalidate the Scriptures, 
but rather confirm them. The remarkable 
thing is, that we find such close resem- 
blances of names and institutions in Gen- 
esis and so few in Exodus and Leviticus. 

While on this part of my subject and 
in conclusion, I can not refrain from call- 
ing the attention of this audience to the 
long line of opposition between the re- 
ligions and the policy of the Hebrews and 
Babylonians, which extends from the time 
when Abraham was called out of Ur of the 
Chaldees to leave his country and his 
kindred, until,in the Apocalypse and the 
later Jewish literature, Babylon became 
the height and front of the offending 
against the kingdom of the God of Israel. 
All through that extended and extensive 
literature of the ancient Hebrews, all 
through those long annals of the Assy- 
rians and Babylonians, wherever the He- 
brews and the Assyrio-Babylonians were 
brought into contact, it was by way of 
opposition. The only exceptions were in 
the cases of some weakling, Jehovah-dis- 
trusting kings. But with these excep- 
tions, prophets and kings and poets em- 


phasize and reiterate the antagonism, es- 
sential and eternal, existing between the 
worship of Jehovah and the worship of 
the idols of Babylon. And when the 
children of Israel had been carried away 
to the rich plains of Babylon, so beauti- 
ful, so vast, was it as a Greek patriot to 
the Athens of his dreams, or a Scotsman 
to his “ain countrie?” Not thus. But 
they wept when they remembered Zion: 
“How shall we sing the Lord’s songs in 
a strange land?” Not thus does the 
Catholic pilgrim sing when he treads the 
streets of papal Rome and stands in awe 
beneath the dome of St. Peter’s. Not 
thus does the Arab Hadji pray when he 
bows within the sacred precincts of the 
Kaaba. But thus has every Jew through- 
out the ages felt, the record of whose 
thoughts and feelings has been pre- 
served to us; and thus does every child 
of Abraham according to the promise 
feel—that not to Babylon, the golden 
city, the mother of science and art and 
commerce, and of idolatry and harlotries 
and sorceries, do we look for the springs 
of our religion and the hope of our sal- 
vation,—but to Jerusalem the Golden, 
the City of the Great King. 





President Hall: We shall now have the 
privilege of listening to the Rev. M. G. 
Kyle, D.D., Frankford, Philadelphia. By 


reason of his original investigations in his 
department Dr. Kyle is entitled to speak as 
a representative of Archeology. 


ADDRESS OF REV. DR. M. G. KYLE 


‘Unscientific Handling of 


I have been introduced to you as an- 
other of those dreadful specialists. I 
want you to note that they are not all 
on the wrong side, not by a great deal. 
You will have to allow us one privilege, 
however, if we are to be specialists, the 
privilege of beiig somewhat microscopi- 
cal in method. 

One of the fundamental errors of the 
prevailing criticism is the illogical 
handling of facts. The so-called “mod- 
ern view” fools itself with facts and then 
tries to fool the people. We must credit 
scholarly and seemingly candid men 
with real candor, and so, I say, they fool 
themselves first and then fool the peo- 


84 


the Facts of Archzology’”’ 


ple. Now, the Archeologist is a man of 
facts. I see that a few of you look a 
little incredulous at that, and it must be 
confessed that Archeologists do some- 
times theorize prodigiously. Neverthe- 
less, the Archzologist’s material in hand 
is facts, things that other people have 
done a long time ago and that have been 
kept in hand or have been dug up in 
these later days. We deal with facts. 
However much we may theorize upon 
them, the material is facts. 

I wish to point out to you very briefly 
some of the fallacies of the Higher 
Criticism of the day in the handling of 
these facts of Archeology. I am not to 


make an address, but simply to make 
points that others may elaborate at their 
leisure. I have promised myself to 
make five points in ten minutes, if that 
clock does not go too fast. 

Fallacy First: Depending upon au- 
-thority instead of upon evidence. 

Here I hasten to guard against misun- 
derstanding. I would not have any- 
body suppose that I seriously charge the 
Higher Critics of the day with depend- 
ing too much upon the authority of 
Moses or Joshua, or David or Isaiah, 
but upon the authority of one of the 
modern scholars without presenting, or, 
must I say it? even examining the evi- 
dence upon which that scholar’s opinion 
rests. A single example will suffice to 
illustrate the point. In that rhetorically 
charming book, “Modern Criticism and 
the Preaching of the Old Testament,” 
by a distinguished Scottish Professor 
who has done more than any other to 
entwine the garlands of rhetoric about 
the cold hardness of the shaft the 
Critics would raise over the tomb of di- 
vine revelation, the gifted author pays 
his respects to the work of the Arch- 
zologists of a century in a brief portion 
of a single chapter. He finds almost 
nothing that has any bearing upon Bibli- 
cal questions, and that little to favor the 
advanced critics. You will remember 
that he singles out the Egyptian name 
of Joseph as about the only thing really 
worthy of notice, and settles the whole 
matter not by evidence but by authority. 

The statement stands at the end of 
a long attenuated line of quotations. 
He quotes confessedly from Profes- 
sor Driver, in the Hastings Bible Dic- 
tionary (which is but a brief presenta- 
tion of the same author’s views in his 
essay in “Authority and Archeology”); 
who in turn rests his opinion upon the 
declaration of Ebers, Brugsch and Stein- 
dorff. The opinion of Ebers he quotes 
from the Bible Dictionary, that of 
Brugsch from his “Steinenschrift,” and 
the work of both belongs to the past. 
Both these men passed from the sphere 
of opinions into the world of knowledge 
some time ago. As no communication 
has been received from them since, even 


85 


a critic may not assume that this is what 
they believe now, or what they would 
have believed had they lived and labored 
on through the period of recent produc- 
tive research which has set so many 
things of Ancient Egypt in a new light. 
Thus the authority of these scholars is 
removed from the argument. 

The remaining authority, the distin- 
guished Egyptologist of Leipsic, appro- 
priates, as the basis of his opinion the 
work of M. Krall. Upon this authority 
is based the assertion that Egyptian 
names such as that given to Joseph had 
no existence until about the ninth cen- 
tury B. C., a thousand years after the 
time of Joseph, if he be entirely his- 
torical. A little patient investigation of 
the evidence discovers that the identifi- 
cation of Joseph’s Egyptian name by M. 
Krall is weighted down with all but im- 
possible phonetic difficulties; whereas 
there are known four names of kings of 
the fourteenth dynasty before the tradi- 
tional time of Joseph, which supply an 
exact Egyptian equivalent for Joseph’s 
name, letter for letter, with the mean- 
ing, “the one who supplies the nourish- 
ment of life.” The evidence has been 
ignored for the authority of a great 
name. 

Fallacy Second: Deduction without 
comparison or without sufficient induc- 
tion. 

This fallacy finds its most patent, per- 
haps its most flagrant, use, or abuse, in 
the classification of the words peculiar 
to various ages or various authors of the 
same age, upon which, from Astruc 
down, the literary analysis of the Pen- 
tateuch has depended, and which has 
been so much used in the further exten-- 
sion of the literary analysis to all the 
books of the Old Testament. But it is 
a fundamental law of logic that there 
can be no deduction without compari- 
son, no conclusion from one premise, no 
list of words peculiar to any age, if there 
is no book in that language from any 
other age, or list of words peculiar to 
one author of any age if there is no 
known book of any other author of that . 
age. This method as applied to the ; 
Bible could hold good only if there was 


an extensive Hebrew literature from 
centuries from which there is absolutely 
nothing but the Bible; and as applied to 
many authors could hold good only if 
there were several others for compari- 
son, where, in fact, there is none at all. 
The only way it has been possible to use 
this method with the Old Testament is 
to assume that it was written at a much 
later date and thus bring it into com- 
parison with the extensive Hebrew lit- 
erature of Exilic and Post-exilic times; 
but this is to beg the question at issue. 

But the fallacy of deduction without 
sufficient induction is by no means con- 
fined to this classification of words. It 
is applied also to the other materials of 
Archeology. A most familiar illustra- 
tion is the usual interpretation given by 
the Higher Critics to the Israel tablet 
found by Professor Petrie in Egypt. 
They assert that at the time of the in- 
scription Israel was already in Palestine, 
and that the destruction of Israel’s 
“seed” means not the destruction of the 
male children but the destruction of the 
“crops.” This all seems in a general 
way out of harmony with the Bible ac- 
count but quite in harmony with the 
current development theory of Israel’s 
history. But it is a case of insufficient 
induction. 

It rests first upon the opinion, spe- 
cially supported in this country by the 
distinguished Egyptologist of Chicago 
University, that “seed” in Egyptian 
never means children, as it does in so 
many other languages. Yet in Hatasu’s 
great wall inscription at Deir el Ba- 
hari, the god Amon is represented as 
addressing the Queen by the same word, 
and clearly meaning, “Issue, my holy 
Issue.” Imagine a father addressing his 
daughter as “Crops, my holy Crops!” 

This opinion of the Israel tablet rests, 
in the second place, upon the assertion 
that alf the other peoples mentioned 
were in Palestine, that Israel seems to 
be associated with Khar, and that Khar 
was a name for Palestine. So it was, 
but it was a name of Palestine by way 
of the great valley that runs from the 
Jordan down through Arabia to the Red 
Sea, the very desert of the wanderings. 


86 


In the third place, this opinion over- 
looks altogether the fact that, of the 
eight peoples named, Israel is the 
seventh. All that precedes and the one 
that follows have in the Egyptian two 
determinatives, meaning “Foreign peo- 
ple” and “own country;” while the name 
Israel has only one determinative, that 
for a “Foreign People.” That denoting 
an “own country” is omitted. If Israel 
were the last name, we might think the 
scribe had carelessly omitted the second 
determinative, but since “Khar” follows 
with both determinatives, it is about as 
near to a demonstration as anything in 
epigraphy can be, that the scribe in- 
tended to omit the determinative for 
“own country” after “Israel.” 

Thus the inscription, when all the 
facts are gathered, is in entire accord 
with the Biblical narrative. It may mean 
the destruction of the male children. 
Israel seems to be put just where the 
Bible puts the wandering nation, and 
it is clearly indicated that she was a 
people without an “own country,” a set-~ 
tled abode of her own, either still in 
Egypt or, more probably, in the wilder- 
ness of the wanderings. 

So far is this fallacy of deduction 
without sufficient induction carried in 
the use of Archzological facts, that 
nearly every great inscription discovered 
that has a bearing on the Bibie is 
claimed by the critics as against the 
Bible’s historicity, until careful investi- 
gators have had time to collate all the 
evidence. 

Fallacy Third: Disregard of the evi- 
dential value of the complete harmony 
between Archeological finds and Bibli- 
cal records purporting to be from the 
same time and place. 

As long as a discovery can be made to 
appear as against the Bible, it is con- 
sidered very important by the critics 
But just as soon as all the evidence is 
adduced, and it is shown to be in har- 
mony with the Bible account, it is dis- 
carded and classed with nearly all that 
has gone before as of little or no evi- 
dential value. 

Now it is admitted that any one thing 
that merely does not contradict the 


i i 


Bible is not of so great evidential value 
as one thing that did contradict the 
Bible, if such should be discovered. But 
that is not at all the state of the Arch- 
zological argument for the Bible. Let 
me illustrate. You and I have a very 
dear old friend who has told us much 
of his childhood, of the place of his 
birth, the people among whom he lived, 
the customs of the people, and many 
events of their history, together with the 
topography of the country and the 
names and character and conduct of the 
néighbors round about. But some per- 
sons have aspersed his reputation, have 
said that while our old friend imparted 
to us some lessons of great moral 
value, he romanced a_ great deal 
about the facts of his life history. 
Then we have gone to investigate. We 
have visited the community he has 
named, have inquired among the old 
neighbors, have looked into the history 
and examined the remains of the times 
he indicated, and have found many 
things to confirm his statements, and not 
a single thing inconsistent with his 
story, and we have come back with con- 
fidence fully established in his veracity, 
under the conviction that it is a moral 
impossibility to believe that he could lie 
so much and never get caught at it. 
This Book [pointing to the Bible] is 
your friend and mine, and very dear. 
It has told us much of the times and 
the lands and the peoples and the 
events from which it comes. But the 
prevailing Higher Criticism has aspersed 
its reputation, has challenged in large 
part its historicity. We are told that it 
inculeates moral lessons of great 
value, but romances much upon the 
facts. Then the Archzologists have 
gone to see. We have visited the old 
communities, have enquired among the 
old neighbors, have read in the old 
chronicles, have seen depicted the old 
customs, have searched the ruins of pub- 
lic works long buried, have even gone to 
the cemeteries and read the old names 
on the tombstones. We have found 
many things explicitly confirming our 
dear friend’s story, and nothing what- 
ever inconsistent with it, not one estab- 


87 


lished fact of Archeology has contra- 
dicted the Bible. Our confidence in our 
old friend is made stronger than ever 
before, because it is morally impossible 
to believe that under the searchlight of 
present-day Archeological investigation 
the Bible could deceive us so often and 
never get caught at it. 

That is the Archeological argument 
for the historicity of the Bible, and it 
exposes the fallacy of the critics in dis- 
regarding the value of general harmony. 

Fallacy Fourth: Disparagement of 
the Bible as Archeological material, a 
part of the records of the past. 

Putting aside for a moment all ques- 
tion of the inspiration of the Bible and 
of its character as a divine revelation, 
let us look at it merely as a part of the 
literary remains of Bible lands. The 
peoples of Bible lands left immense lit- 
erary treasures. By far the largest por- 
tion of them have been lost, alas! per- 
haps forever. Some parts have never 
been lost. These sixty-six books of the 
Bible have never been wholly lost, to- 
gether with a vast Rabbinical literature 
from Exilic and post-Exilic times and 
some Greek remains of the beginning of 
the Christian era,—but most notably 
these sixty-six books which we call 
Scriptures. Some that was lost was 
recovered a long time ago, especially 
the writings of certain Greek travel- 
lers, as Herodotus, Strabo, Xenophon, 
not to mention others; and these are 
usually called classics. Still other por- 
tions of the literary remains of Bible 
lands, some on papyrus, some on parch- 
ment, some on tablets of clay or of 
stone, have been recovered from oblivion 
in quite recent times. These are spe- 
cifically denominated Archeological 
finds. Now, all of these, whether Scrip- 
tures, or Classics or Archzological 
finds, are monuments of antiquity, liter- 
ary remains of Bible lands. But the self- 
styled champions of the literary method 
disparage the Bible among these liter- 
ary remains of Bible lands. They insist 
upon testing the Bible by all the rest. 
They put the Bible in the prisoner’s 
dock, deny it a prisoner’s right before 
conviction to be heard on the witness- 


stand without undue prejudice. And 
they call against it all the other remain- 
ing witnesses, and, if Eddin-sin or 
Muballet-sin or any other old heathen 
Babylonian or Egyptian “Sin-ner” can be 
found to say a word that seems to be in- 
consistent with the statements of Moses 
or Joshua, or any other Biblical author, 
forthwith they announce that the Bible 
has been discredited. In the name of the 
Bill of Rights, I protest against such un- 
equal treatment of witnesses. The Bible 
is not the prisoner at the bar. As 
Archeological material, the Bible is no 
more on trial than any other witness of 
antiquity; and it is not to be disparaged, 
to be made unequal, in the comparison. 

I might go on pointing out fallacies 
and giving illustrations until it would be 
time for the historic rooster on the top 
of this Church building to announce the 
morning. I will only name one more 
point, and this one is not against the 
critics. The greatest danger from the 
prevailing Higher Criticism is not with 
the critics but with the dear people that 
have been utterly indifferent. Thank 
God, they are waking up, but they have 


been indifferent and in that indifference 
lies the great danger. Tuberculosis is 
not essentially a very dangerous disease, 
because it is easily preventable; the dan- 
ger lies in the amazing indifference of 
the people. The prevailing Higher 
Criticism is the tuberculosis of faith. It 
is not a very dangerous disease in itself, 
because its evil effects are easily pre- 
ventable; the danger lies in the utter in- 
difference of the Church hitherto. The 
Bible-loving people have gone on ignor- 
ing it, very much in the mental attitude 
of the man who was being examined by 
the civil service commissioners. They 
asked how far the moon is from the 
earth. Well, he did not know. So he 
wrote: “I do not know how far the moon 
is from the earth, but I feel very sure 
that it is not near enough to interfere 
with my mail route.” So the people 
have had the idea that the Higher Criti- 
cism was something away up in the air, 
well out of the way of their mail route. 
But it does affect their mail route, the 
only road by which any message has 





President Hall: Owing to the late- 
ness of the hour, Dr. Mackenzie will ad- 
dress us to-morrow morning, when he 
will give us one of the most interesting 
addresses of the Convention. 

The General Topic for the session to- 
morrow morning is, “Method proposed 
by the League for Remedying the 
Evils.” There will be addresses by Dr. 
Gregory, General Secretary, and other 
members of the Education Committee 
and of the League on the First Special 
Topic, “Concentration of Popular At- 
tention Upon the Best Way of Master- 
ing the Bible and What is in It.” 

On the Second Special Topic, “Co- 
operation with Existing Agencies in In- 
teresting the Young in Systematic and 
Constructive Bible Study,’ addresses 
are expected from Rev. Wayland Hoyt, 
D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia, a leader in 
Christian Endeavor work; Rev. Charles 
L. Fry, of St. Luke’s Church, Philadel- 
phia, Literary Secretary of the Luther 


88 


ever come to us from God. Let us 
wake up! 
League of America; Mr. Willis E. 


Lougee, Secretary of the Business De- 
partment of the International Committee 
of the Y. M. C. A.; Rev. James A. Wor- 
den, D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia, Su- 
perintendent of the Sabbath School and 
Missionary Work of the Presbyterian 
Church, and others. : 

I think we have also one or more rare 
treats in store, of which announcement 
has not yet been made, and we do not 
propose to make that announcement un- 
til to-morrow morning, 

We will now join in singing the clos- 
ing hymn, and after the Benediction, we 
shall go to our homes with a prayer on 
our lips and in our hearts that our 
Heavenly Father will most graciously 
bless the labors of His servants this 
day. 

Dr. Burrell: Hymn No. 79. 

“Come, pure hearts, in sweetest meas- 
ures.” 

Benediction. 


THURSDAY MORNING SESSION, MAY 5 
ro:00 A. M. President William Phillips Hall in the Chair 
OPENING DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES 


Dr. Burrell: Let us sing the old 
Hymn, No. 370, Prayer for light: 

“Come, O Creator, Spirit blest!” 

Dr. Burrell: Psalm cxix. We will 
read the two divisions, Mem and Nun, 
beginning with verse 97. 

Prayer by Dr. Burrell: 

O God, that dwellest in light and 
glory unapproachable, everything is 
clear before Thee; but we, Thine own 
sons and daughters, down here among 
the mists and shadows, among doubts 
and misgivings, ifs and perhapses and 
peradventures, groping our way like 
blind people along the wall, dost Thou 
not see and pity us, our Father? 

Aye, verily, Thou hast given us light. 
We thank Thee for the light shining in 
the face of Jesus Christ, who is Thy 
Word unto us. We thank Thee for the 
light shining upon the pages of the writ- 
ten Word, showing us the face of Jesus 
Christ. We rejoice in this written Word 
of Thine. Thou hast done everything to 
make our way clear. Save us from our- 
selves, now; save us from our own wis- 
dom, from getting into our own light, 
from stumbling over our own feet, from 
going before the pillar of cloud and try- 
ing to have our own way. Thou art 
wiser than we are, infinitely. Oh, we 
are glad to have a Father so much great- 
er than His children, so much wiser; 
and our hands are in Thine. If they are 
not in Thine, oh, Lord God, we want to 
put them there now, here and now, to 
be guided by Thee. 

Father above, give us light for the 
next hour; and after that we ask Thee 
for another hour of light, and so on until 
the day-break and the shadows flee 
away. Meanwhile we trust in Thy word; 
it is a lamp unto our feet. Thy prom- 
ises, Thy precepts, we love them; sweet- 
ér than honey they are to us. Blessed be 
Thy name, in Jesus Christ. Amen! 

Dr. Burrell: Now, let us sing again, 
No. 82: 

“A glory gilds the sacred page 

Majestic like the sun.” 


President Hall: In opening this con- 
cluding session of the first Convention 
of The American Bible League, I would 
announce that this Convention is but 
preliminary to a much more comprehen- 
sive one to be held in the near future, 
in which we shall be able to treat the 
vital Biblical issues in much greater de- 
tail than has been possible in the meet- 
ings that conclude with this morning’s 
session. While I am not prepared at 
the moment to announce definitely when 
the next convention will be held in New 
York City, I may say that in all prob- 
ability such a convention will be held 
some time next fall or winter. We shall 
aim, by preparation most thorough and 
by notice most general, to insure not 
only a convention of the very highest 
merit in every respect—even as this has 
been—but also one that shall be very 
much more comprehensive—including 
many more speakers and covering a 
wider range of the great subject in 
which we are interested. 

I would also state that we have al- 
ready received a request from friends in 
Chicago to hold a convention somewhat 
similar to this in that city next month. 
I think that will be out of the question. 
We have also been invited to St. Louis; 
and friends in Boston have suggested 
that a convention be held there; and 
from other places word has been re- 
ceived that a convention of the charac- 
ter of this one would be welcome. All 
this indicates the widespread interest 
that is felt in this work, as was evi- 
denced by the letter read from Principal 
Sheraton, of Wyckliffe College, To- 
ronto. We have already heard from 
many places in the Motherland across the 
sea, as well as from other points in the 
Christian world. The movement al- 
ready inaugurated is broadening, deep- 
ening and intensifying in its sweep, and 
it is becoming evident that within a very 
short time, we trust within the present 
year, The American Bible League will 
have no less a membership than ten 


thousand in the United States. and 
Canada. We think there is every reason 
to anticipate that this increase will be 
realized. 

I stated last evening, in giving the an- 
nouncements of this morning’s pro- 
gram, that we had some pleasant sur- 
prises to present at this time. It gives 
me very special pleasure therefore, in 
line with this statement, to introduce a 
very dear friend personally and a very 
dear friend of the Bible and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who comes from the city 
of Providence with a message of pecul- 
iar interest at this time. It is a message 
that is not announced upon the pro- 


gram, because it has come to our no- 
tice since the program was printed; 
but it has reference to one of the most 
interesting questions in connection with 
this subject of the Destructive Criticism; 
in fact, the discovery that he will pre- 
sent to you has been pronounced by no 
less an authority than Sir Robert An- 
derson, of Great Britain, as a discovery 
that deals the most stunning blow to the 
Radical Criticism that has yet been dealt 
by scholarship. I have the pleasure of 
introducing to you Rev. Robert Cam- 
eron, D.D., Editor of “The Watchword 
and Truth,” who will address us upon 
the subject stated. 





ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ROBERT CAMERON 
“The New Key to the Psalm Titles” 


I have but five or ten minutes in which 
to condense what ought to occupy at 
least three-quarters of an hour, and I, 
therefore, can only indicate to you the 
wonderful discovery that has recently 
been made,—a discovery which Dr. Bul- 
’ linger says is the most marvelous dis- 
covery made in Biblical research for the 
last two hundred years. “The Titles of 
the Psalms,” by James William Thir- 
tle, published by H'enry Frowde, Lon- 
don, Edinburgh, Glasgow and New 
York, is the name of the book. Sir Rob- 
ert Anderson says that the result of the 
discovery is to utterly destroy—not sim- 
ply discredit, but destroy—the hypothesis 
of the Higher Critics. 

The discovery is simply this: the sig- 
nificance of the titles to the Psalms. I 
am glad there are so many scholars here 
this morning, who will perfectly under- 
stand every single thing I have to say 
about it. Everyone knows that the mu- 
sical notes of the Psalms are in utter 
confusion; they are utterly misunder- 
stood. Delitzsch says the significance of 
them was lost at an early date. Well- 
hausen states—and you will find this in 
the Polychrome Bible, and of course 
that is up to date and has the highest 
scholarship—that in most cases the mu- 
sical titles are unintelligible to us. 

Now, then, Mr. Thirtle has discovered 


90 


the significance of these musical titles 
in a singular way, and when I state it 
you will say, “It is so simple, why was 
not I bright enough to see that?” It 
was said here yesterday morning that 
the Pentateuch was written right along 
without any divisions or punctuations, 
and with no titles given to the Five 
Books. The same is true of the Psalms. 
The Oriental writing did not have para- 
graphs, nor punctuation points, as we 
have to assist the eye and help the un- 
derstanding. Therefore, the Psalms are 
written in that way and dovetailed into 
one another. In what way could they 
determine where a Psalm ended? Some 
of them had no name and were called 
“Orphan Psalms.” 

Now, suppose that all the Psalms were 
written so that at the top of the page 
there was a Literary Title indicating who 
wrote it, when it was written, the occa- 
sion out of which it grew and the nature 
and the character of the Psalm. Suppose 
that there was a Musical Title put at the 
bottom of it, stating its place in the Jew- 
ish Calendar, the time when it was to be 
used, and where it was to be used. Now, 
then, grant that they put in Psalm after 
Psalm in this way, and you will see how 
easy it is to separate the Musical Title 
from the bottom of one Psalm and join 
it to the Literary Title at the top of the 


Psalm following. That was the very 
thing that was done. 

I happened to see the gentleman who 
discovered it two days after he found it 
out, and he was in perfect ecstacy about 
it. I said to him, “Thirtle, do you see 
what that does? It knocks the bottom 
out of the hypothesis of the Higher 
Criticism.” 

He said, “I see it does, but I won’t 
put that in my book. The scholars may 
work that out.” 

You see, then, how this would obviate 
the great confusion as to the time, occa- 
sion and circumstances under which 
these Psalms could be used. 

Change the position of the Musical 
Title e. g., of Psalm iv. and put it back 
to Psalm iii. At once the whole Psalter 
is filled with light. 

Now, bear in mind that we have the 
Psalms exactly as they have been hand- 
ed down to us by the Seventy, who made 
their translation two hundred years be- 
fore Christ; that those Seventy schol- 
ars knew absolutely nothing about the 
significance of those Musical Titles, the 
liturgical notes. It had dropped out of 
the knowledge of the most scholarly men 
in the Jewish nation two hundred years 
before the days of our Lord. 

The Psalms, then, date further back 
than the period of the Septuagint; but 
how far back? 

Sir Robert Anderson says, it seems 
utterly incredible that the Sanhedrim of 
the Septuagint period—which was prac- 
tically the same body that existed in the 
time of Nehemiah and Ezra, the College 
of the Great Synagogue—utterly incredi- 
ble that that body should have allowed 
the key to the Musical Titles to have 
dropped out of their consciousness. It 
must, therefore, have been lost before 
their time. Therefore, Delitzsch and 
others are right in saying that the mean- 
ing of these musical symbols was lost 
at the destruction of the First Temple. 

Now, where does this lead us? The 
Psalms are carried clear back to the 
days of Ezra. We must look for a time 
when these musical titles could have been 
appended. One thing is very evident: 
~ that whenever Psalm and Title were 


QI 


brought together, the services of the 
Temple were in full force. The Psalms 
could not possibly have been thus gath- 
ered together after the days of Josiah 
and his great revival. It could not have 
happened under the last three Kings; 
therefore, we have the Psalter practic- 
ally as we have it now clear back to the 
days of Josiah. At that remote period 
we find that the chief musicians who were 
appointed according to King David, had 
given titles to them: one by Moses, many 
by David, and some by the sons of 
Asaph, and many were assigned to cer- 
tain Feasts, or to choirs, or to some spe- 
cial use in the Temple. 

It is utterly unbelievable that men in 
the days of Josiah could have given these 
titles, unless they had good reason for 
believing that they belonged to them. 
And thus we get back not far from the 
days of Solomon for the origin of these 
titles for the Psalms, 

If it be true that you do find one 
or two of these Psalms that were 
post-Exilian, or about the time of the 
Captivity, it simply proves that the 
Psalter existed practically in its entirety 
at that time, and that a few additions 
were then made. 

Permit me to say that I hope the time is 
coming when lovers of God’s Word will 
not any longer have to be bleeding with 
sorrow or boiling with indignation at 
the way in which men have talked about 
our Lord—that He did not know when 
He said that David was the principal 
author of the Psalter. Let us hope that 
there will be more of modesty among 
these men; that they will believe that 
there are some things that they do not 
know, and some things which our Lord 
did know; and that among the things 
that He knew were, that Moses was the 
author of the Pentateuch and that David 
was the principal author of the Psalter. 

It seems to me that this discovery at 
this time is very similar to the discov- 
eries that have been made by the arch- 
zologists. Just as a man gets dead sure 
that something is wrong with the Bible, 
some old Bedouin sheik stubs his toe 
against a brick or a tablet and all they 
claim is disproved. And now just as they 


have been dead sure that the Psalter 
never could have been written earlier 
than the days of the Maccabees, God 
has let this man discover the significance 
of these titles that pushes their origin 
back beyond the days of the Exile. 

Do you ask how he discovered it? 
In a very simple way. 

In the last chapter of the Book of Ha- 
bakkuk, and the thirty-eighth chapter of 
the Book of Isaiah, he found two Psalms 
standing out alone, exactly as they were 
originally written. Examining them he 
found that the Literary Title was at the 
opening, the musical title at the close. 


He made his discovery known to Col- 
onel Conder, the head of the Palestine 
Exploration Society of London, and Col- 
onel Conder said that the Oriental 
Psalms from 1500 to 500 B. C., have that 
exact arrangement so far as he has given 
them examination. 

There has not been a single schol- 
ar thus far that has questioned the 
discovery; but hundreds of them have 
written to the author, declaring it to be 
the most marvellous discovery that has 
been made, and acknowledging how stu- 
pid we have been that we did not see it 
long ago! 





ADDRESS OF REV. DR. MACKENZIE. 


“The Right of Defence” 


[The last place on the program for 
Wednesday evening -was assigned to 
Rev. Robert MacKenzie, D.D., formerly 
Professor in the San Francisco Theo- 
logical Seminary, now pastor of the Rut- 
gers Riverside Presbyterian Church, 
New York City., For reasons given by 
President Hall his address was deferred 
until Thursday morning. As Dr. Mac- 
Kenzie was not able to be present at that 
session, he has kindly prepared his ad- 
dress in written form for publication in 
the Report.—Eniror.] 


Paul says that he was sent for the de- 
fence of the Gospel. The word he uses 
for defence is our word apologetic. For 
sinister reasons apologetics is slightingly 
spoken of, yet it has scriptural warrant 
and apostolic example. It has come to 
pass that to say a word in defence of the 
Gospel, or of the Bible, as we have it, 
is at once to meet the objections of two 
Opposing parties. One party deprecates 
the effort on the ground that the Bible 
need not be defended; the other on the 
ground that the Bible should not be de- 
fended, that it should lie open to all 
manner of attacks. If it is what we 
claim for it, it can not be injured. To 


Q2 


defend it is to acknowledge that some- 
where and in some conditions it is weak. 
To form a league against the Bible is 
laudable, scientific and in the interest of 
scholarship; to form a league for the 
Bible is reprehensible, narrow and mis- 
chievous. 

This is a convenient assumption; but 
not readily granted in a world of fair 
play. The assumption is not without its 
parallels in other fields of contest. China 
has been assumed to be fair game and 
the prey of Western nations; to be ex- 
ploited and divided for Western pur- 
poses. For China or any of its friends 
to defend its integrity is mischievous, 
hindering to the progress of the new 
civilization, and is the rise of a Yellow 
Peril; which assumption is likely to be 
roughly treated by the hard facts of the 
case. For the right of defence is a pri- 
mary right of human nature in regard to 
any possession. It is gratuitous as it is 
futile to question our right to defend 
the most sacred of all our possessions 
as Christians. 

When the right to defend the Bible is 
admitted we are then told with naive 


blandness that all the new thinking and 
reverend scholarship is against the evan- 
gelical view of the Bible. Just what 
these ornamental adjectives “new” and 
“reverend” mean in the terminology of 
the day has nowhere been defined. 
Thinking is as old as man, and scholar- 
ship has been reverend since it first 
considered religious subjects. The forms 
of thought and the principles of scholar- 
ship have long been fixed. If these 
comfortable adjectives mean anything it 
is something like this: Two young men 
of equal parts, of similar training on 
similar subjects by the same professors, 
come out into the arena of religious ex- 
pression, one speaking against the Evan- 
gelical view of the Bible and the other 
for it; the one speaking against it is as- 
sumed, by that fact itself, to be the 
greater scholar, and the one speaking 
for it, by that fact itself, to be the lesser. 
Thus there is at last discovered a royal 
and a cheap road to new learning and 
reverend scholarship. But such grave 
questions as those involved in the Evan- 
gelical and traditional view of the Bible 
are not settled by such naive assump- 
tions. 

Much is said at the present time on the 
supposed overthrow of all traditional be- 
liefs by rationalistic higher criticism, and 
of the necessity under which every in- 
telligent man now lies to adapt himself 
to a new condition of things as to the 
: Bible, Christ and the way of Salvation. 
_ Has this criticism, then, already and fi- 
_ nally won the battle? If indeed the last 
_word has been spoken, if the present 
_ verdict of such criticism is confirmed, 
we can hardly contemplate the religious 
prospect with a light heart. The Bible, 
as we hold it, has done so much in this 
world, in the way of the education and 
reformation of the individual, in the 
sanctity of the home, in the charity and 

philanthropy of society and in the free- 
dom of government, that we may be 
reasonably prejudiced in its favor and 
9 regretiul at the passing of such an in- 
fluence from the motives of men. It 
has done all this because it has been re- 
ceived among us, not as the word of men, 
but, as it is in truth, the Word of God. 


PS Ca ae ee ee ee ee ee eee 
















93 


Certainly this Book runs across man’s 
natural desires and imposes moral res- 
traints not welcome. It imposes duties 
not easy to perform. It pronounces all 
men—even well-dressed, well-mannered 
and educated men—sinners before God. 
It presents one definite condition of sal- 
vation—repentance and faith, and one 
only Savior—Jesus Christ. It lifts up an 
awful future for those who disobey its 
injunctions and refuse to repent and be- 
lieve in Christ. It thus commands our 
intellect and our conscience, our hopes 
and our fears, on the ground that it is 
in the most peculiar and particular man- 
ner the Word of God Who is our Crea- 
tor, our Providence and the Disposer of 
our destiny. 

If, however, it is but the word of men, 
that at once releases us from its res- 
traints, its duties and its beliefs. If it is 
but the word of men, that reduces the 
book from the level of a religion to that 
of a philosophy, and we know at once 
what to expect. The world has had its 
philosophies before Christ and after. 
Masterly creations of the wisest of men 
in all the old world continents are in our 
libraries. But the masses of mankind 
with their needs have always proved a 
burden too heavy for any philosophy to 
bear. Nor were the philosophers them- 
selves able “to keep from sinking to a 
moral pollution which placed the civi- 
ization of their time below its barbar- 
ism.” 

This is the main issue of the present 
hour. Higher Criticism seeks to show 
that the Bible is a religion—the Word 
and Will of God to man. Rationalistic 
Higher Criticism seeks to show that it 
is a philosophy—the word of men to 
men. There can be few concessions and 
no compromise between these two. It 
is one or the other for each of us. 

The effort to reduce the Bible to a 
philosophy is an old story. The curious 
thing is that it should be presented to 
us today as something new, and as the 
result of a new science, a new thinking 
and a more reverend scholarship. More 
than thirty years ago Dr. Christlieb of 
Bonn University compared it to the bat- 
tle of Chalons, where the Romans ob- 


tained a triumph over the invading and 
devastating hordes of Attila and his 
Huns. “The bloody work of the sword 
was done, and the vast plain strewed 
with countless heaps of dead. But for 
three nights following”—so ran the tale— 
“the spirits of the slain might be dis- 
covered hovering over the scenes of 
their late encounters, and continuing 
their ruthless conflicts in the air.” What- 
ever new body this rationalistic criticism 
may take on, the informing spirit of it 
is a ghost of a confident, but vanquished 
past. With this difference, however, the 
original theory had a deliberate and con- 
fessed purpose to get the Bible and 
‘Christ and the Evangelical church out 
of the way of men. It went straight to 
that purpose. It had the courage of its 
convictions.: Men lived it out in a 
Christless, Godless life. It did not pre- 
tend to be religious. It knew it was op- 
posed to the whole scheme of revealed 
religion and said so. In its present re- 
vival it poses as peculiarly religious and 
uniquely Christian, and bans to the 
outer darkness of ignorance those who 
will not do it reverence. We are told 
by the frankest of these critics, that if 
the whole Bible were to be given up re- 
ligion would not suffer. The result of 
snch a loss is not left to a guess or toa 
prophecy. There is a world without the 
Bible—a world not only in far-off Africa 


or Polynesia, but here all about us— 
without any regard to God’s Word, or 
God’s law, or God’s offer of salvation 
through Jesus Christ; a world large 
enough surely in which to test this flip- 


pant prophecy to its utmost logical con- — 


sequences. Are they living any better, 
are they doing any more for the good of 
men in the life that now is, than those 
who guide their faith and their conduct 
by the Bible? Is their life any way en- 
riched by taking Jesus Christ out of it? 
Is the heart of man purer, nobler, by tak- 
ing the Holy Spirit out of it? 
made less terrible and the grave more 
hopeful by extinguishing these words of 
assurance in the Gospel? These are 
questions to be answered, not by suave 
prophecies of the future, but by perti- 
nent facts of the present. 

What defence may now be made 


against this recrudescence of an old — 


theory should follow not only the lines 


of scholarship, but also the lines of — 


morals, of philanthropy and of Christian 
pity for the multitude. To play at this 
game of subjective criticism with Ho- 
mer, or Shakespeare, or Goethe is to 
entertain and amuse the studious. To 
play at it with the Bible, with the birth, 
the death and the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ, is to rob men and women of that 
for which there is no known substitute 
in the stress of life and of death. 


Is death © 





Fourth General Topic 


‘ METHOD PROPOSED BY THE LEAGUE FOR REMEDY- 
ING THE EVILS”’ 


President Hall: The speaker named 
Sir Robert Anderson in connection with 
this matter. It gives me pleasure to an- 
nounce that it is our expectation at our 
next Convention to have Sir Robert An- 
derson, as well as some other represen- 
tatives of the British Bible League, and 
other scholars of Great Britain, to ad- 
dress us. 

We will now proceed with the ad- 
dresses under the General Topic of the 
morning session: “Method Proposed by 
the League for Remedying the Evils.” 

The first special topic is: “Concentra- 
tion of Popular Attention upon the Best 


Way of Mastering the Bible and What 
Tsim Tt. ; 

It gives me great pleasure now to in- 
troduce to you as the first speaker on 
this program, one who has spoken to 
you already during the sessions of this 
Convention, our beloved General Secre- 
tary, the Rev. Daniel S. Gregory, D.D., 
EAD: 

After Dr. Gregory, other members of 
the League will address us. This ses- 
sion will doubtless prove to be to all 
who are present one of the most inter- 
esting in all the series. Dr. Gregory 
will now address you. 


First Special Topic 


“Concentration of Popular Attention upon the Best Way of Mastering the Bible 


» 


and What Is in It” 


ADDRESS BY REV. DR. GREGORY 


“Method Proposed Involves a Three-fold .Campaign” 


I am glad to stand here, brethren, as 
representing especially the Education 
Committee of The American Bible 
League. Many of the members of the 
Committee are absent for causes beyond 
their control. President Buttz would 
rather be here, I am sure, than to be 
made Bishop away on the Pacific Coast; 


95 


and Dr. Willis J. Beecher would be here 
if anything less stood in the way than 
the Seminary Commencement, and the 
fortieth anniversary of the graduation 
of his class at Auburn; and Principal 
Sheraton would be here, were it within 
the limits of possibility. I represent, 
the Education Committee, however, as 


we have had much conference concern- 
ing the plans of the League. 

Under the “Method Proposed by the 
League for Remedying the Evils,’ I am 
to consider, in particular, “the concen- 
tration of attention upon the mastery of 
the Bible and what is in it.” 

We assume that the Bible is the source 
and basis of our civilization and of all 
that is best in the civilization of the 
world, and we are seeking to present 
the remedy for the evils of which we 
have been told during this Convention, 
and which sorely need to be remedied. 

Those evils you may sum up briefly: 

(1) As a lack of knowledge of the 
Bible. That has been demonstrated by 
the recent examinations of students by 


college professors and the public school ~ 


teachers and superintendents; so that no 
one can possibly doubt the density of 
the ignorance of the Bible that exists 
in high places and in low places. 

(2) A lack of reverence for the Bible, 
consequent upon lack of knowledge of 
what it is and what it claims to be. You 
have heard enough during this Conven- 
tion to convince you that this age is 
peculiar in its monumental lack of rey- 
erence for the Bible as the Word of God. 
(3) A lack of obedience to the Bible 
in its commands, consequent upon the 
lack of knowledge of it and of reverence 
for it. And this lack of obedience mani- 
festly extends from the failure in the 
smallest thing connected with individ- 
ual honesty, away up to the fatal failure 
to obey the Great Commission of Jesus 
Christ to carry the Gospel into all the 
earth. 

The Bible being at the basis, there is 
need of concentration of attention just 
now on the Bible, in order, not to find 
out something about the Bible, but to 
find out what it is and what is init. We 
must get the Bible back into its true 
place in the minds and hearts of the 
people; and we must get the people and 
the institutions back to their place on 
the Bible; if we are to remedy the exist- 
ing evils. 

We have undertaken, therefore, under 
the influence of the profound conviction 
that this must be done, a three-fold cam- 


96 


‘ 


paign: a campaign of education on the 
Bible, a campaign of new literary work 
for the Bible; and a campaign of national 
and international organization of Chris- 
tian and conservative forces for the de- 
fense and dissemination of the truths of 
the Bible. 


I, The Campaign of Education on the 
Bible. Attend for a moment to the con- 
templated campaign of education on the 
Bible. That lies at the basis. 

“The best way of mastering the Bible 
and what is in it,’—that is the way it is 
put in our statement. We propose, in 
the first place, a new and natural method 
of studying the Bible and of presenting 
the Bible truths. 


Old and Artificial Methods 


The present ignorance of the Bible, 
now everywhere in evidence, is proof 
of the failure of the old methods. We 
shall not stop to show that that is so. 

The fragmentary method was tried for 
a generation or two. We were kept 
studying the comments upon verse after 
verse, on the tacit assumption that no 
verse had any connection with any other 
verse, until we wearied of that, and 
would have no more of it. 

So the lesson systems came in, and we 
have had series upon series of such sys- 
tems, showing that men deeply felt that 
there was need of system in the study 
of the Bible. But these systems have 
been artificial, all of them; the latest of 
all the most so of all. The men who 
have been engaged in preparing them 
deserve our gratitude. They have done 
the best they could, doubtless; and we 
will look for more light and improve- 
ment for the time to come. But you 
hear everywhere that the people are 
weary of Lesson Systems. They are so 
because the systems are artificial, and 
because they do not take you directly 
to the Bible as the Word of God, but 
rather by means of most useful lesson 
leaves and other devices take you away 
from it. 

And it is impossible to grasp the sys- 
tem, however valuable it may be. You 
study in seven years your three hundred 
and fifty Lessons in a so-called system; 


and at the end of the seven years the 
best memory in Christendom has been 
found unable to hold that system so as 
to tell what has been taught in that time. 
When you have passed on from each 
Lesson you have lost its connection with 
the Bible, and lost the Lesson, too. 

Men have at last wearied of that 
drudgery; for it has inevitably become 
drudgery. I have met many a Sunday- 
school teacher who has been engaged in 
the work, say for twenty years, who has 
told me: “I am tired of this thing. I 
have been studying and following these 
so-called systems year after year, but I 
don’t know any more about the Bible 
than I did twenty years ago; in fact I 
don’t think I know as much about it as 
I did then. I am exhausted, and I am 
going out of business as a Sunday-school 
teacher.” 

There was a call for something bet- 
ter. To this call the New Critical 
Method was doubtless a _ respense. 
There was, so to speak, a vacuum in the 
minds of teachers and professors in 
charge of instruction in the Bible. Well, 
just at the psychological moment there 
came all this German material,—inter- 
esting, ingenious, imaginative, ready to 
fill that vacuum. The two needs meet, 
and so we have had our recent develop- 
ment of the critical system of studying 
and presenting the Bible, which they are 
seeking now to introduce into all the 
schools and colleges and Sunday schools. 

That critical method has taken the 
Bible apart into bits and scraps and 
scattered it to the ends of the earth, as 
we have heard and have reason to know. 
When one comes upon its results he feels 
that he does not know exactly where he is. 

I will give you a parable of my barn, 
that will illustrate what I mean. When 
I lived on a ranch, a cyclone came one 
night, and its results will perhaps show 
you the feeling I have had after going 
through all these works of the radical 
critics. I had a barn that was a fairly 
good structure. In it there were a good 
many valuable—almost indispensable— 
things; but one night there came a cy- 
clone while I was asleep, and the next 
morning I found that barn scattered 


97 


over forty acres of prairie land. The 
only piece of its contents that came out 
of it not entirely crushed and scattered 
was a light road-wagon; and that had 
been lifted bodily and carried a quarter 
of a mile and left in what we Western 
people call a slough. That wagon was 
the only thing left in recognizable form. 

Now, when I look at the work of the 
critics, and find that the only fragment 
left of the Pentateuch, for example, is a 
little piece of Deuteronomy, and that 
even that has been swept all the way 
from Moses to Josiah, it reminds me of 
that cyclone and the wagon in the 
slough. I found I was not warranted in 
attempting to reconstruct my barn out 
of the wrecked material; in fact there 
was nothing left of it. Quite as absurd 
would be the attempt to reconstruct this 
material of the Pentateuch that has been 
wrecked and wrenched and scattered 
far and wide. You have only to read 
the attempted reconstructions that have 
been undertaken of late, in order to see 
just how absurd the attempt at recon- 
struction is. 

The event has made it sufficiently clear 
that these proposed methods have not 
fully satisfied the needs they were devised 
to meet. They have been too artificial 
and mechanical. 

A New and Natural Method 

There seems to us to be a call for 
something better; for a method that 
shall be natural, not artificial; that shall 
be constructive and truly scientific, and 
not destructive and scattering and un- 
literary; and that shall be cumulative in 
its results—so that when a man has 
studied one year, or five years, or ten 
years, or twenty years, he can feel that 
he has added the treasures of knowledge 
from all the work of the years to what 
he started with at the beginning. 

The Secretary has sketched this 
method, and the Education Committee 
has considered it carefully; and it has 
been presented for your consideration 
in a pamphlet entitled “Bible Study for 
Permanent Results and Use,” that will 
be scattered this morning, so that you 
can see and understand for yourselves 
the general method proposed. 


Study of the Bible in its Natural Divi- 
_ sions, 

We propose, first of all, to have this 
method a natural one. We are not go- 
ing to take the Bible apart and study a 
fragment here and a fragment there. 
We propose to follow the natural plan 
of the Bible, if such a plan can be found. 

Now, there are natural parts to the 
Bible. The Pentateuch, for example, 
gives you the origin and organization 
of the Divine religion as the Law. The 
rest of the Old Testament exhibits the 
development of that religion: 

(1) In the Historical Books in con- 
nection with the national life and insti- 
tutions and customs of the people, so 
as to shape the public life; q 

(2) In the Poetical Books, the devel- 
opment of that religion in connection 
with the inner religious life, because you 
must always have a basis of conviction 
and feeling if you are to have any prac- 
tical vital religion; 

(3) In the Prophetical Books, the 
struggle of Divine Grace with the peo- 
ple to save them from destruction and 
prepare for the future Messiah and the 
Gospel. 

Now, these are natural divisions, and 
each of them falls into its natural sub- 
divisions. If we can only study these 
divisions and sub-divisions in their nat- 
ural order and in a natural way, you can 
readily see what the outcome of such 
study will be: you can come back to 
the Bible with the results of your study 
every time, and find everything you 
have ever learned before right there in 
the Bible itself; and you can add a thou- 
sand-fold to it as you go on to succes- 
sive years of study. 

To show the difference between a nat- 
ural and an artificial method, let me 
call attention to a method that has been 
devised — which has been popular and 
advocated by many able men —which 
takes up the Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
tament in dispensations. Following this 
method your teacher says: “Why, the 
oldest book in the Bible is Job.” So he 
begins with Job, and you are called upon 
to study Job first of all, and the Penta- 
teuch comes somewhere after that. Your 


Bible is “pied” for you, as the printers 
say. And after you have gone through 
it in that way you never get the parts 
back in place again; for this method 
scatters the parts, rather than. concen- 
trating attention upon the Book as it 
is and upon every part of it in natural 
order. 


Constructive and Literary Study 


We propose to study the Bible in its 
unity and in its completeness, and, there- 
fore, to make the study constructive and 
truly literary. 

One great trouble with the methods 
of Bible study is the trouble that we 
have had in the universities in the past 
in the study of English Literature. Years 
ago the editor of The Dial, of Chicago, 
wrote to all the leading professors in 
the great universities and asked them 
to set forth how English literature was 
studied in the universities. There was 
a series of papers printed from the lead- 
ing professors, and it was generally ad- 
mitted after the series was completed, 
that it demonstrated just one thing, and 
that was that English Literature was 
not studied at all in any proper sense 
in our universities. There was a little 
biography (for instance, they would tell 
the student that when Sir Isaac New- 
ton was born he was so little that they 


could put him into a quart mug); there . 


was a little mechanical history; there 
were a great many curious things and 
all that, told the student by way of in- 
formation; there was a little poor phil- 
ology and perhaps a little bad grammar, 
and a little attention to figures of speech, 
and so on; but of attention to English 
Literature in the strict and proper sense 
there was none worth mentioning. Why, 
a literary production is a great and mas- 
terful construction, havin; a theme, an 
aim, an organic unity. If you are to 
study it as Literature, you must study 
it from that point of view. You need 
to begin by asking to what department 
of literature a production belongs, and to 
get all the light that can be had con- 
cerning its origin and environment and 
aim,—and then to study it carefully with 
all the light possible from these sources. 


Now, that same method must be ap- 
plied to the Bible if you are to get any 
satisfactory .esults. If you study the 
“Julius Cesar” of Shakespeare, the very 
first thing you ask is, What is Shakes- 
peare doing here? Is this prose or 
poetry? If it is a tragedy, what is the 
one great action that is presented here? 
Well, when you find out that that action 
is “The Death-Struggle of the Old Ro- 
man Republicanism with the Rising Cze- 
sarism,” you have the key to that drama. 
Applying the key you find that death- 
struggle presented with most marvelous 
movement and unity. There is a suc- 
cessful conspiracy against Cesar. The 
First Act gives its inception in which 
the elements are brought to light; the 
Second Act, the organization of the con- 
spiracy; the Third Act, the execution of 
that conspiracy and the scattering of 
the forces from the dead body of the 
fallen Cesar. 

Then follows the military Death-Grap- 
ple: the Fourth Act setting forth the 
gathering of the military forces for the 
death-struggle, so that at the end of the 
Act they face each other on the Plains 
of Philippi; the Fifth Act depicting the 
death-struggle itself, over which the 
spirit of Caesar comes to preside. The 
old Roman Republicanism is dead; Czx- 
sarism is triumphant. With this key 
you are prepared to come to an under- 
standing of the general plan of the “Ju- 
lius Caesar” of Shakespeare. 

When that has been completed the 
detailed study of the tragedy becomes 
a delight, instead of a drudgery. When 
you have studied it in both ways, you 
don’t have to remember it; “it remem- 
bers itself,’ as one of my bright men 
once said to me after such a study of it. 
It has become one of your permanent 
possessions. 

If you are to study the Bible so as to 
get a masterful hold upon it, you must 
study it in a similar way. It is of little 
use to study Genesis in bits and frag- 
ments; but if you once get the idea that 
Genesis has just two things in it—the 
two being really one—the origin of the 
Divine religion of redemption in its old 
form, or as the Law, and the origin of 


99 


the people who are to become the de- 
positary of that religion; then you have 
the key to the Book, and everything falls 
into its place in a natural and. complete 
plan. 

And if you once get the idea that the 
Gospel according to Matthew is, not a 
biography but the written record of the 
preaching of Matthew—history declares 
it to be that—intended to demonstrate 
to the Jew that Jesus was the Messiah 
of the Prophets; so that it is an argu- 
ment of the closest kind based upon the 
Old Testament Scriptures; you have the 
key to the Gospel according to Mat- 
thew. Its natural divisions fall apart 
of themselves before you. And-the Jew- 
ish origin and aim of this Gospel furnish 
the key to those forty-two parts out of 
one hundred that are in Matthew but 
not in any of the other Gospels. You 
will find that they are explained by the 
fact that they are for the Jew, intended 
to show to him and the man of like na- 
ture that Jesus is the Messiah, that he 
may be led to accept Him as his Savior. 

Beyond all question this constructive 
and literary method may be applied to 
all the Bible. One thing that we pro- 
pose to do is to help to apply it. 


Cumulative and Accumulative Study 


This will lead to cumulative results in 
the study of the Bible. 

Men hate bits and scraps; at least 
men of sense. Man was made a con- 
structive being rather than anything else 
—if he is not that in measure, he is a 
small pattern of a man—made. to be a 
creator in some sense. I say he hates 
bits and scraps. The human mind is 
made so that it has an infinite abhor- 
rence of all such things, and of all meth- 
ods that would direct its energies to them, 

Now, this is the method we propose. 
for consideration, adoption and practi- 
cal use. I have illustrated it in the 
pamphlets that will be distributed to 
those who desire them. This method 
is to be advocated, among other things, 
in our magazine, and is to be set forth 
in a series of Bible League Primers. 
“Bible Primer No. I.” the first of the 
kind issued, is ready for your examina- 


tion and for the use of the public. It 
presents an “Outline View of the Bible 
as God’s Revelation of Redemption.” 
It seeks to show how all the books fall 
into the one great plan as parts of the 
unfolding of God’s one work of Redemp- 
tion as Law and as Gospel. This is in- 
tended to prepare the way for the study 
in detail and in succession of the natural 
divisions found in the Bible. And all 
this is in order to open up to men its 
teachings as the Way of Life. 


II. The Campaign of Literary Work for 
the Bible. 


The second undertaking in which the 
League is engaged is a campaign of lit- 
erary work, 

It contemplates the use of the con- 
servative scholars and forces for the 
purpose of carrying forward this work 
on the largest scale. We are to get be- 
yond our Bible League Primers. We 
are to have Primers on the vital issues 
that we have been considering. We are 
to have Commentaries, if the Lord will, 
coming at the Bible as the Word of God 
from this natural and constructive point 
of view that we have been setting forth, 
and treating the books in such a way 
that when one has studied one of the 
commentaries, he will know something 
about what is in the Bible, and not mere- 
ly something that somebody has said 
about the Bible, or about something in 
the Bible that somebody has said was 
not so. 

And then we have in contemplation 
(and on this the lamented Dr. Purvis 
was in conference with us before his 
death and our plan was fairly outlined) 
a great Bible Dictionary and Encyclo- 
pedia that shall, in its scholarship and 
breadth and scope, surpass the works 
of all the Encyclopedias that are now 
being brought before the public, and 
that shall show the falseness of the posi- 
tions which the Critics seek to maintain, 
often with so much scholarship and 
learning. The necessity for this has 
been felt very widely. I recollect that 
President Buttz, in discussing the mat- 
ter in one of our meetings not long 
since, said: “That above everything else 


100 


is one of the great things we must have. 
There come to my students at Drew 
Seminary the agents from the publish- 
ers, and they say: ‘Here is the Ency- 
clopedia Biblica. You can’t afford to be 
without that.’ ‘Well, but I can’t afford 
to buy it” ‘But you can have it for al- 
most nothing, for a dollar a month, pay- 
ing for it as you go along.’ They treat 
the Polychrome Bible in much the same 
way. They get the student to subscribe 
to it as a necessity, at the rate of a dol- 
lar a month; and then the poor young 
man goes out into the ministry to be 
saturated with it and be perverted by it.” 

That was the opinion of President 


_Buttz, and he said: “We must provide 


something that will give the Bible in 
popular as well as scholarly shape; 
something to meet all these evil teach- 
ings that are abroad and counteract 
them.” 

This is, in brief, one enterprise that 
we have in view. 


III. The Campaign of Organization. 


We have a third thing in contempla- 
tion, a campaign of organization at all 
centers for the purpose of carrying for- 
ward our work on these lines with the 
aid of all available forces. 

We need organizations for this pur- 
pose, general and local organizations. 
The advocates of the views we deprecate 
have been organized with absolutely per- 
fect generalship, and are pushing their 
work with the aid of almost limitless re- 
sources. They are backed, too, by sub- 
stantially all the great publishers. It 
ought to be self-evident that, in this age 
of organization, we can never accom- 
plish anything without bringing the con- 
servative elements and forces together 
upon a common platform, and massing 
them for this work. All the conserva- 
tive scholars must be engaged in the 
enterprise of pushing the study of the 
Bible and the understanding of it out 
into all the world. 

In these organizations that are pro- 
posed we shall have a two-fold aim. We 
first want to get the issues before the 
public, issues that have been presented 
here. But there is little use in mere 


— 


talking; the evidence must be presented, 
that the people may be brought to un- 
derstand what the real state of the case is. 

The Boston Transcript, as Dr. Plumb 
told us, accuses us of stirring up strife. 
Well, the Lord Jesus Christ stirred up 
strife when he was upon earth, and The 
American Bible League will have to stir 
up strife in this evil world, if it accom- 
plishes anything. We do not propose 
to do it for the sake of strife, but for 
the sake of enlightenment, and for the 
purpose of giving the people the knowl- 
edge they need. Discussion is the only 
method possible in the circumstances. 

But we are to go beyond that, to give 
back to the people the Bible itself. If 
we can get the Bible into the minds of 
the people—beginning with the preach- 
ers, who will confess to you that they 
do not at all know the Bible as a whole 
—why, the Bible will take care of itself, 
and all this rationalistic criticism will 
fall to the ground in due time. 

We desire, first of all and most of all, 
to get the leaders and the people down 
to this work of studying the Bible and 
of mastering it, from the natural, con- 
structive and cumulative point of view 
that has been set forth. We desire to 
get a better knowledge of the Bible into 
their minds, and to get them back upon 
the Bible again as the basis. That is 
what we are for, not for controversy 


but for more light; and that because we 
believe the Bible to be not only the 
basis of our civilization but also the only 
way of life for perishing men. 

It must be self-evident that all this 
will involve the use of money as well 
as of brains. Our work has been car- 
ried on with what energy and means 
could be brought to bear upon it; but 
the financial burden so far has fallen 
largely upon one who has said nothing 
about the burden, but to whom we owe 
to a larger extent than to any other 
this Convention and this work that 
has been done. We look for the help 
of many men of moderate means and 
many men of wealth, who will come up 
and aid in carrying forward the work. 
We need ten thousand dollars a year to 
begin with. We need a special fund of 
one hundred thousand dollars for imme- 
diate use. That will be but a trifle if 
our friends could be made to feel what 
a mighty work needs to be done, and 
how God demands that it be done at 
once. We appeal to you, dear brethren 
in the Lord, for your help in this task 
in which we are engaged. The Educa- 
tion Committee desires your interest in 
it, your prayers in its behalf, your co- 
operation in every way, that the work 
may be carried forward with power to 
that complete triumph for which we look 
through Christ, our Lord and Master. 





Dr. Burrell: In pursuance of what 
Dr. Gregory has said, though I suppose 
we have no authority to take any def- 
inite action here today, I have in my 
hands a note, proposing a matter of 
considerable importance, and which 
moves me to suggest the following ac- 
tion on the part of the people who-are 
present: 


Resolved, That the Directors of The 
American Bible League be requested to 
select, as soon as possible, a local secre- 
tary for every city, town and village of 
the United States and Canada, whose 
special work shall be to organize the 
friends of the Bible into Local Auxiliar- 
ies or Branch Leagues, and to arrange 
in that connection for Local Conferences 
in general character like that in which 


Ior 


we are now assembled, and for syste- 
matic Bible Study in all practical and 
profitable ways. 

I am not only a member of the Bible 
League but I am also a member of this 
body today, and it is as such that I 
would now offer this resolution, if it is 
entirely in order. I would offer it as a 
request made to The League. (Sec- 
onded). 

President Hall: All in favor will re- 
spond by saying aye. It is carried. 

We shall now pass on to the second 
subdivision of the topic already an- 


nounced: “Co-operation with Existing 
Agencies in Interesting the Young in 
Systematic and Constructive Bible 
Study.” 


The first speaker on the program not 
being present at the moment, we shall 
announce the second, Rev. Charles L. 
Fry, of St. Luke’s Church, Philadelphia, 


and Literary Secretary of the Luther 
League of America. It gives us great 
pleasure to introduce our good brother, 
Dr. Fry. 


Second Special Topic: 


“Co-operation with Existing Agencies 


in Interesting the Young in Systematic 


and Constructive Bible Study” 
ADDRESS BY REV. CHARLES L. FRY 
“The Bible the Instrument of Spiritual Power with the Young” 


It is perfectly logical and natural that 
the final words of this Convention should 
be along the line of application, espe- 
cially to our young people as being the 
hope of the future. If the message may 
not appeal to the entire 32,000 of Gid- 
eon’s army, nor even to the 10,000 of the 
second count, it does appeal tremendous- 
ly to the faithful 300, on whom the say- 
ing of Israel depends. The Gospel deals 
with souls as individuals, not in masses. 
Herein it differs radically from every 
form of Paganism. 

Take the whole system of caste in 
which a man is born, how it binds him 
with fetters of steel hand and foot, so 
that he can not budge and can not move. 
-But the Word of God comes to every 
man as an individual, and even if he is 
a very humble individual, it clothes that 
man with the power of the Spirit of the 
Living God. Why, think of Luther, for 
example! Think of how little he had in 
the way of anything like equipment; but 
have you ever seen a statue of him that 
has not the Word in one hand, and the, 
other hand resting firmly on that Word, 
as the only source of what he is and 
hopes to do? “Not by might nor by 
power.” 

Now, this power of the Spirit upon 
which we are absolutely dependent 
comes through the Word. That is the 
keynote, Mr. Chairman. There is not a 
word in the language that appeals to 
our young people so much as that word 
“power.” That is what they want; and 
all who are susceptible to these higher 
influences will rally if we can make posi- 
tively certain to them that this Word 
is the instrument of power. Now, they 
do not apprehend that. We take up the 
hymn, and this is what we sing: 


“From the discoveries of Thy Law, 

The perfect rules of life I draw.” 

Whilst this is true, grandly true, yet 
we need more than rules. We do not 
simply need the Word of God as giving 
us rules. Suppose, then, you make that 
last line read: 


“From the discoveries of Thy Law, 
Thy very life itself I draw’— 


do you not see what a very different 
gospel that is? It does not disparage 
the Bible in other respects. If this Book 
were simply a book of information, even 
then there is not anything else like it 
on earth. But this is not simply a book 
of information; it is far more than that; 
it is a “Book of Life.” You do not startle 
at that definition; it is one you have 
been accustomed to as long as you can 
remember. Just take that “Word” and 
take that “Life.” What does it mean? It 
means what it says: it means Life comes 
thro’ the Book. Isn’t that a startling 
statement? yes; there is but one book 
in the world in that category; Life 
comes by a Book. That is to say, here 
we have not simply historic and scien- 
tific truths, but supremely moral and 
spiritual truth; and even here the pre- 
vailing conception is far too low. It is 
not simply a Book of spiritual truth, it 
is supremely and above everything a 
Book of Power. 

Ask the average man among our 
young people what is his conception of 
the Book. He will say to you that it is 
a Book that tells us our duty, and a 
Book that awakens in us yearnings for 
a higher Life. Do you say, “All that 
is good so far as it goes, but it does not 
go half far enough?” It is true so far 
as it goes—awakens a yearning for a 


102 


higher Life; but the great thing is that 
it satisfies that yearning. It does not 
simply awaken yearnings; it does not 
simply make us wish to be good; it does 
not simply comfort us in our sorrows; 
it- gives us power. There is not a thing 
which that Book tells us to do but that 
it enables us to do it. That is a mar- 
velous thing. That is why it is the 
Word of God. With the command 
comes power. With every command in 
this Book comes power; it is a Book 
instinct with power; it is the Word of 
God. The vital question is, What is the 
value placed upon the Bible among our 
young people? Well, actions speak 
louder than words. We have a right to 
judge by the part it has in the public 
meetings and in the young people’s so- 
cieties,—oftentimes merely a rubric in 
the opening devotional exercises; so much 
so that its omission would hardly be 
noted as much as that of the opening 
prayer, or of the opening hymn. 

One thing is sure: if we can discover 
the secret to arouse in the hearts of 
young men and women who represent 
the best types of thought in the next 
generation, an intense enthusiasm -for 
the Holy Scriptures, as if their very life 
depended upon the Sacred Book; so that 
a man would rather lose his right arm 
than his confidence in the inspiration, 
genuineness and authenticity of his Bi- 
ble, then the problem of this Conven- 
tion is solved. 

As regards the problem we are now 
dealing with, we may as well give it up 
and ask for an easier one, unless our 
young people can be brought to an en- 
tirely different conception of what the 
Bible, is from the universally prevalent 
conception. That is far too low. That 
conception is, that the Scriptures are 
nothing more than a text-book of sacred 
history, a manual of sacred geography, 
a schedule of sacred scenes, festivals 
and observances, 2 compendium of 
sacred precepts and customs, a collec- 
tion of morning and evening exercises. 
If that is the view, then the thought of 
this encyclopedia, this dictionary of 
theological terms, this dictionary of good 
morals, this atlas of by-gone nations 
being snatched from the hands of our 


103 


young people by the robber critics, may 
be regarded by them without a shudder, 
since they do not appreciate what has 
been taken from them. A man suffers 
the frenzy of desperation if he knows 
he is being robbed of his only means of 
livelihood, on which not only himself but 
his wife and children and perhaps his 
aged parents are entirely dependent for 
support; but this involves his immortal 
soul rather than his perishing body. 
When he realizes that the destiny of 
his deathless being is involved in hold- 
ing fast that inspired revelation which 
is being wrenched out of his grasp, he 
clings to it with all the energy of which 
he is capable. 

li the Bible be an inert printed page, 
a mere product of the bindery, on a par 
with any other book of literary werth- 
ies, made up of sentences, paragraphs 
and chapters containing information of 
ancient civilizations and religious cedes, 
or even including precepts for our own 
personal religious observance, and noth- 
ing more than that; then, all its unique 
value is gone, and it is not a Bible at 
all. The Word of God claims to be as 
a book what the Christ of God claims 
to be as a man. 

Deny the divinity of Christ and you 
have no Savior. Deny the divine char- 
acter of the Book, and you have no revy- 
elation. Acknowledge the Bible to be 
a good book, the best of all books, 
but not in very deed and truth what it 
claims to be—the Word of God,—that is 
exactly like acknowledging Christ te be 
a good man, the best of men, but not in 
very deed and truth what He explicitly 
says He is, the Son of God incarnate, 
the Word made flesh. The heart of the 
question centers here. 

Now, what is it? Let it speak for 
itself: “Ye shall receive power after the 
Holy Ghost is come upon you.” We 
know where to go when we need power; 
we know where to go and get power. 
We do not get spiritual power apart 
from the Word. Have you ever got 
any? Do you know anybody who has? 
We do not get spiritual power apart 
from the Word. Such a sublime and 
simple truth as this leads us out of the 
region of false mysticism and of laying 


undue stress on the subjective. We 
have been talking about the Radical 
Higher Criticism over-emphasizing the 
subjective; and not only over-emphasizing 
the subjective, but as saying there is no 
objective truth. Mr. Chairman, we are 
ourselves to blame for this over-empha- 
sizing of the subjective which the crit- 
ics have carried to its logical issue. We 
have failed to note what the Scripture 
does claim on the objective side: “The 
words that I speak unto you, they are 
spirit and they are life’; “Quick and 
powerful, sharper than any two-edged 
sword”; “Which effectually worketh,’— 
worketh (that is the emphatic Word) 
“Which effectually worketh.” 

Now, that is one thing we have for- 
gotten. In our experience meetings we 
make subjective the whole matter. In 
our revivalism we fail to place the proper 
stress upon that which is objective. So, 
in our own private devotions, all the 
spiritual light and life, and joy and 
peace and strength we have, we have 
gotten from the Holy Ghost through 
the Word. There is no other source. 

Then, power is not evolution; spirit- 
‘ual power is never an evolution, it can 
not be. Spiritual power is always and 
in every case a gift. 

Is it not simple? “Ye shall receive 
power”! And who is there that can not 
do that? It does not take any genius 
to receive a thing. “Ye shall receive 
power’! And if you have power, you 
have it because you received it. You 
do not evolve it; you do not generate it. 

Why, is there a man that says it is 
scientific to talk of spontaneous gener- 
ation? Is there a spontaneous gener- 
ation of life? The Rationalistic Crit- 
icism is based upon that acknowledged 
absurdity of spontaneous’ generation. 
Now, it is false science. Life is from 
God; science can not analyze it; science 
can not create it. God alone is the Author 
of life; and this Book is the ‘Book of 
Life,’ because it is the Book of God. 
Suppose we realized that in our work as 
teachers in the Sunday school; suppose 
we realized it as we stood before our 
classes; suppose they realized it, as they 
take it in their hands, that they are 


104 


holding the Book of Power, the Book of 
Life! Why, I feel sometimes that I wish 
it might make some appeal to physical 
sensation; that there might be some 
thrill, as if from an electric battery to 
make us realize: “Here is a Book that is 
absolutely unique! Here is the Book of 
Power!” 

It is true that in things spiritual there 
is never an appeal to flesh and blood, but 
true also, true without exception, that 
power is always communicated in a def- 
inite way. Is it not glorious to think 
of that? Because you know where to 
go. Suppose it were not so; suppose 
the gifts of the Spirit were conveyed 
at hap-hazard; suppose they were acci- 
dental; suppose you could not tell where 
they came from; suppose you could not 
tell whether they came at all; suppose 
you could not know. You do know; 
you know there is only one source of 
power; and that is the Holy Ghost. You 
do know that this Word is inspired by 
Him, and inspired for the purpose of 
conveying power! 

Suppose we take that truth into our 
classes; suppose the purpose of teaching 
it be to receive power through it. There 
is not one here who has the least hesi- 
tancy in fully agreeing that science, so 
long as this earth shall last, science will 
never generate life. That is a thing Di- 
vine, out of the province of science, and 
therefore if this Book is the Book of 
Life, then to cut it to pieces is vivisec- 
tion. 

Now, to apply this truth to our young 
people, and then we stop. If we can 
make them realize that the Word is the 
source of power—do you think they do 
not all want power? Do you know a 
young man in all your acquaintance that 
does not want power? Do you know 
any man that does not; of whom that is 
not the strong cry? Oh, if he could only 
have power to do what he wants to do! 
How can he evolve out of himself what 
is not in himself? He receives it; he 
receives by definite means of grace. That 
makes it so plain to him. 

Here is the last sentence. We are 
holding in our very hands “the instru- 
ment” (I hardly dare say it; it takes my, 


eer 


breath!) We are holding in our very 
hands the instrument of God’s creative 
power! Let us reverence it! Let us be 
glad of it! Let us have a definite pur- 
pose always in using it! Let it be the 


prayer of each one, that He who in- 
spired this Word shall quicken us by it! 
Let it be our prayer that he will uplift 
us by it, energize us by it, sanctify us 
by it, for His name’s sake! 





President Hall: We have heard from 
a representative of one of the greatest 
Young People’s Societies in the world, 
and we have been delighted with the 
message. I am sure that it has come 
with no uncertain sound. 

We shall now hear from a gentleman 
who represents another great Christian 
society in this fair land of ours, The 
Young Men’s Christian Association, 


one of the greatest agencies for the 
practical exemplification of the spirit, 
life and work of Jesus Christ that the 
world under God has ever produced. It 
gives me great pleasure to introduce 
our friend, Mr. Willis E. Lougee, Secre- 
tary of the Business Department of the 
International Committee of the Young 
Men’s Christian Association. Mr. Lou- 
gee will now address you. 


ADDRESS BY MR. WILLIS E. LOUGEE 
“Bible Study and the Y. M. C. A.” 


It was a surprise that I should be 
placed upon the program in a conven- 
tion like this. I have been wondering 
what I could bring as a layman to sup- 
plement what has been said. And yet, 
perhaps I might represent very feebly 
that greater constituency of our Chris- 
tian workers—the laity. We do not 
thoroughly understand the theological 
terms and expressions which have been 
used here, but we do understand that 
this Book which we love and revere 
above everything else is God’s own 
Word and God’s own weapon for us to 
use. 

After spending nearly twenty-five 
years in special work for the young, and 
at the same time attending to my duties 
as a superintendent, teacher and church 
officer, I bring to you as a layman, not 
a pessimistic view, but I come rather 
with a feeling of optimism. Yet, at the 
same time, I do recognize as a layman 
the dangerous tendencies so prevalent in 
our schools in relation to the destruc- 
tive criticism. There seems to be an 
effort to take away from us laymen that 
Book which has been such a source of 
blessing and inspiration to us, to take 
away from us our Bible, the Bible that 
speaks to us as the voice of God, speaks 
directly to our hearts and consciences. 
If I read the signs of the times aright, 
this is the tendency. 


105 


There was a time when a certain 
Church continually robbed, as it is at 
present robbing, the plain people of this 
Word of God, and saying to them, “You 
must not interpret this Book or its doc- 
trines, except as we tell you the inter- 
pretations thereof. You must not study 
this Bible for yourself; we will tell you 
its teaching; we will tell you what it 
means to you. You must receive the 
message of God through us; not directly 
from His Word.” 

There are other Churches which for 
centuries have given the Bible to the 
plain people as the authoritative Word 
of God; but a certain class of scholars 
have arisen who by their criticism of this 
Book, by putting it upon the plane of 
all other literature, are shaking the con- 
fidence of the plain people in it as the 
inspired Word of God. 

But there are higher critics and higher 
critics; and we of the common people 
understand that among these critics are 
those who devoutly accept this Book as 
the Word of God, and as the infallible 
rule of faith and practice. Now, as I un- 
derstand our organization it is a band- 
ing together of those who believe in the 
Bible, including many of the devout 
critics, for the purpose of preserving 
that Divine Word which has been the 
hope, confidence and help of our Chris- 
tian ancestors as well as ourselves. It ig 


designed to help us give a reason fos our 
faith, What we laymen need is not the- 
ory, but such practical help in our daily 
studies of the Bible as to lead us to ac- 
cept Christ as the Divine Lord and Re- 
deemer, the very Son of God, and to 
help us to commend Him to others as 
their Savior and Lord. 

The Young Men’s Christian Associ- 
ation is one of the best agencies for pre- 
senting Christ to men as the very Son 
of God. Through the teaching of the 
Word God’s will is revealed, and men 
are shown what should be their attitude 
toward God. There never has been a 
time in the history of the Church when 
young men have shown such a deep in- 
terest as now in the study of the Word 
of God. This interest has reached the 
industrial classes. Among the railway 
employees who are members of the 
Young Men’s Christian Association, 
there has never been a time when in- 
terest in the Bible as the Word of God 
was as keen as it is to-day. Railway 
men and other working men in this 
country are turning to it and finding 
in it those principles that will make their 
lives better and stronger. In one of our 
_ Christian Associations in one of the cit- 
ies of this country nearly 300 young men 
were banded together in systematic 
Bible study. One year ago the number 
had increased to over 900, and this year 
it is over 2,000. Besides these about 
1,000 men in the shops and manufac- 
tories of that city spend twenty minutes 
at the noon hour in studying the Word 
of God and praying. Altogether over 
3,000 men in that one city are carefully 
and systematically studying the Bible. 

This League has a great work before 
it among the plain people. It can prove 
to them that their confidence in the Bible 
as the Word of God is not misplaced. 
It can furnish them with safe helps for 
the study of the Divine Word. 

In our Associations we have nearly 
40,000 working-men, plain, common lay- 
men, who are studying the Word of God. 
But study of the Word is not confined 
to the common people to-day; there 
never has been a time in the history of 
the Church when the young men of our 


106 


colleges and other educational institu- 
tions have had the interest in the Bible 
that they have at the present time. 
Seven years ago there were only 2,000 
young men in our Associations engaged 
in systematic Bible study. They got 
their spirit from Northfield, from that 
man who valued this Word as no other 
man ever had seemed to value it. The 
influence in favor of Bible study that 
has gone out from Northfield is incalcu- 
lable. 

Not only does the Y. M. C. A. join 
hands with this Bible League, but North- 
field and the Moody institutions every- 
where are with us in purpose and effort. 

Last year nearly 15,000 students made 
a systematic study of the Bible. In 1904 
there are over 25,000 who stand for 
that Book as D. L. Moody stood for it. 
Think of it! Thirty-five thousand labor- 
ing men and 25,000 students—60,000 men 
studying this Word of God! Does not 
this give us a Pentecostal outlook? 

Will you pardon a personal allusion? 
As a boy I had no religious training, but 
I often noticed my grandmother reading 
that old leather-covered Book. I would 
see her push the glasses back upon her 
head and look across the hills with a 
look that made me, a wild reckless boy, 
want to go on tiptoe as I looked at her 
face. And I looked at that Book as a boy 
and wondered what there was in it that 
brought that look into my grandmother’s 
face. I went down into Massachusetts, 
and there I found Jesus Christ. I went 
back home to my old grandmother, 95 
years of age, and told her about it. I 
told her I had found in Christ and the 
Bible the secret of that peculiar look in 
her face. I had the pleasure of going 
into the little home schoolhouse and 
telling about this Bible, and I had my 
grandmother there, 95 years old. Now, 
this may be sentiment to you, but it is 
real enough to me. I would give more 
to hear the testimony which my grand- 
mother gave at that time than all the ut- 
terances of the higher critics that the 
world could bring together. Brethren, 
sentiment moves the world. This Bible | 
sentiment is worth preserving. The 
League would do well to promote such a 





Bible sentiment as that which touched 


the lives of Luther, Leslie, Finney, Mur- 


ray, Livingston and Moody, who in turn 
touched and moved the world! 





President Hall: The gentleman whom 
we have just had the pleasure of listen- 
ing to, not only represents the Interna- 
tienal Committee of the Y. M. C. A, but 
is the former President of the Presby- 
terian Union of New York City, and in 
that capacity has had opportunity to 
learn the minds of many of our leading 
laymen in this great Metropolis on this 
burning question. 

In concluding the program of the 
morning, we will again hear from Phil- 
adelphia. I want to say that Dr. Hoyt 
expected to be here, but has been unable 
to be present, to represent the United 
Society of Christian Endeavor. If I mis- 


take not, we have had the Society repre- 
sented in the person of our brother, Rev. 
Dr. Burrell. The Chairman is also one of 
the trustees of the World’s Christian En- 
deavor Union. I want to say that I be- 
lieve the great Christian Endeavor move- 
ment in the main stands for the dear old 
Book as we understand it and as we be- 
lieve it. 

It now gives me very great pleasure to 
introduce the Rev. James A. Worden, 
D.D., LL.D., of Philadelphia, Superin- 
tendent of the Sabbath School and Mis- 
sionary Work of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States. of 
America. 


ADDRESS BY REV. DR. WORDEN 
“The American Bible League and the Sabbath School” 


In the very few minutes which are 
mine I shall endeavor to speak, first, of 
what this League can do for Sabbath 
Schools, and, secondly, of what the Sab- 
bath Schools can do for this League. 

Mr. President, we, the people in Phila- 
delphia, have been deeply impressed al- 
ready by this Convention. We regard it 
as one of the most important that has 
ever been held. The brother that has 
taken his seat, representing the Young 
Men’s Christian Association, spoke in 
eloquent and impressive terms. I may 
be regarded as representing, in a sense, 
the Bible students of this country. And 
I, too, may speak in optimistic terms. 
Let me tell you there are 1,200,000 Bible 
teachers in this country, and among them 
the best equipped, intelligent, practical 
Christians. They have read all that has 
been said against the Bible, and they are 
interested in it. There has been, as you 
are perhaps aware, a systematic and per- 
sistent endeavor to bring the principles 
and methods of the destructive criticism 
into the ranks of the Sabbath schools. I 
myself know—for I have been, as some 
of you are aware, in the heart of this 
work in our Church, the Presbyterian 
Church, for twenty-six years—that for 
over twenty years our brethren holding 
different views from ours have steadily 


107 


and systematically endeavored to get the 
ear of the Sabbath school teachers of the 
country and bring them into their sys- 
tems of study and under their influence. 
They have failed. Those to whom they 
have appealed are readers; they are stu- 
dents; they are diligent studiers of the 
Word of God and of all that has been 
said for and against it. 3 

Why, then, do they stand so steadfast? 
We have been told here in the last two 
speeches that this Word is spirit and this 
Word is life. There is a correspondence 
between this Bible and the soul of the 
Christian; there is a_ self-convincing 
power in the Scriptures that only calls 
for a candid, impartial, prayerful and 
practical study, that it may demonstrate 
that they are the Word of God. The 
Bible is its own best defender. This is 
one way to state it. Another way to 
state it is, that the ground of faith in 
the Scriptures, after all-—and no one can 
speak in more appreciative words than I 
can of external proofs derived from the 
miracles, and from prophecy, and from 
the character of Christ, and from the ef- 
fects of Christianity, and drawn from all 
such discoveries in the line of scholarship 
and from archeology, such as have been 
mentioned here; but, after all, that is not 
the reason we believe in the Bible; it is 


not the reason you and I believe the 
Bible. 

Why do you and I believe the Bible? 
Brethren, it is because the same Holy 
Spirit that inspired this Word dwells in 
our hearts, illuminates that Word, which 
is a mirror in which that blessed Spirit 
reveals to us the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ. It opens our eyes to see 
that glory, and not only do we perceive 
but we see; we are not convinced simply, 
we have direct knowledge and apprehen- 
sion of Jesus Christ as He is in the 
Word,—and that Word is to us Truth. 
Therefore, it is that 1,200,000 teachers in 
this country are studying that Word. 

Let me give you a piece of advice. I 
want to say that in my judgment, it will 
be making the greatest mistake that this 
League could make, ever to speak a dis- 
paraging word concerning the work of 
the Bible teachers and students in our 
Sabbath schools. They are firm believers 
in the inspiration of the Word, despite 
all that has been written, despite all that 
has been said, for the last twenty-five 
years. They stand by your side, Mr. 
President, 1,200,000 strong, convinced, by 
the self-convincing power of the Bible 
and by the work of the Holy Spirit in 
their hearts, that this is a supernatural, 
divine revelation, and that it is infallibly 
recorded in the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments. 

What can you do for them? Carry out 
the program that has been outlined 
for us by Dr. Gregory. You do not have 
to convince us that Jesus Christ is the 
Son of God and our only Savior. You 
do not have to convince us that this 
Bible is inspired. But we do have our 
difficulties. These poor people have their 
troubles; these humble teachers hear this 
criticism made upon the Pentateuch and 
upon the history in the Bible and upon 
Isaiah, and they do not know how to 
answer it. 

Now, we want your Primers; we want 
you to circulate them. We want you, 
Mr. President, to incorporate into your 
League tens of thousands of our Sab- 
bath school workers. This League and 
its objects are not yet known to our Sab- 
bath school workers. Just as soon as 


108 


they know that a League has been or- 
ganized for the advancement of the 
Word against the criticism that widely 
prevails, they will rally around you. Get 
the names of the hundred thousand su- 
perintendents of our Sabbath schools. 
Send to them your plans. Tell them that 
you mean to resist the assaults made 
upon the Scriptures, with which they 
have some little trouble; and you will 
find they will respond. This is just what 
we want. We have no trouble in our 
own souls; yet these criticisms do cause 
us some intellectual difficulties, and your 
answers will be very welcome. Let us 
have these answers. 

Of course there has not been a single 
allegation made by these destructive 
critics that has not been answered a hun- 
dred times. They are well-known to you 
and to me. They are well-known in the 
circles of theologically trained men. We 
have no doubts about them; but the an- 
swers have never been circulated; they 
have never been published or printed in 
elementary form so that our Sabbath 
school teachers and _ superintendents 
could have them in form easily under- 
stood so as to satisfy their minds. 

My message to you, brethren, is one of 
gratitude to the League, and one of 
gratitude to you, Mr. President, and to 
the Secretary, and to the honored and 
beloved Pastor that has _ hospitably 
opened this church to us and to this Con- 
vention. We feel that you have met a 
felt want in the Sabbath school world. 
We feel that you are going to strengthen 
the hearts and encourage 1,200,000 Bible 
teachers and 12,000,000 of Bible students 
—that is what the Sabbath school is for, 
to study the Word; and you come in and 
define that Word. And I want to speak 
in highest terms of that portion of Dr. 
Gregory’s remarks, in his admirable ad- 
dress, in which he wants us to study the 
Word. There is not enough of study in 
our Sabbath schools, there is not enough 
of personal, individual investigation of 
the Scriptures on the part of teachers 
and of scholars with the help of the 
Holy Spirit. That is true; and we need 
such an organization as this. We need 
such a stimulus. We need such a 


National League as has been formed 
there to lead the Sabbath school 
workers to do more thorough work. Do 
not disparage what they have done. 
They have done their best, Mr. Presi- 
dent. There are 500,000 of them that are 
capable and effective teachers. Who has 
trained them? Not the church, not any 
man. God Himself has trained these 500,- 
ooo laymen and lay-women—and the ma- 
jority of them, two-thirds, are women, 
and the best two-thirds of them. They 
have trained themselves, and it is not to 
be wondered at that they have not done 
better work than they have. But, come 
and help us. Come and answer for us in 
a practical, intelligent and brief form 
these so-called destructive criticisms of 
our friends. 

Why should not these Sabbath school 
teachers be brought by tens of thou- 
sands into this League? I do not under- 
stand why they should not; and I believe 
it should be done. 

Mr. President, I brought up here this 
morning our leading paper of Philadel- 


phia—it has every day a letter from New 


-York City, the great Metropolis, and 


each morning we get what is the pre- 
valent theme. And this morning what 
do you suppose it is? This is simply as 
a newspaper: “Theology Claims Invent- 
or’s Leisure. William Phillips Hal! Per- 
fects Appliance to Secure Safety on Rail- 
ways, and Preaches with Power as a 
Layman. American Bible League’s 
President.” It is an admirable article. 
I stand here, as I said before, coming 
from Philadelphia at this late hour of this 
Convention, praying for God’s blessing 
to rest upon this League and praying for 
that blessed Spirit, of Whom we have 
heard in the last two addresses, that He 
will use this Conference, not only for 
us who have the great privilege and 
pleasure of attending, but also, through 
these newspapers that are sending forth 
all over our country accounts of the ad- 
dresses that have here been made, for 
multitudes all over the land who would 
have been glad to be here but have not 
been able to come. - 





Closing Exercises 


Dr. J. L. Clark: Mr. President, be- 
fore the meeting is dismissed, I would 
move that we tender a hearty vote of 
thanks to Dr. Burrell and the officers 
of the Marble Collegiate Church for 
opening its doors to the First Conven- 
tion of The American Bible League, and 
for the many courtesies extended during 
the various sessions; also that we ex- 
press our thanks to the sexton and his 
assistant for their valuable services. 
(Seconded.) 


President Hall: All those in favor will 
respond by saying aye. (Carried.) 

The Chairman, on behalf of the Bible 
League and all the friends of the Word 
of God throughout the country, wishes 
to acknowledge with grateful thanks the 
excellent services of the representatives 
of the Press, who have correctly and 
kindly recorded the proceedings of this 
Convention. I think that it is due them 


109 


of the Convention 


that they should have a vote of thanks. 
(Seconded and carried.) 


Dr. Gregory: I move that we extend 
thanks to the brethren, who have come, 
at great trouble and expense and in 
some cases from a great distance, to ad- 
dress us at these meetings. (Seconded.) 


President Hall: All who are in favor 
of the motion will respond by saying 
aye; contrary minds no; it is a vote. 

It may not be known to those present 
that the services of nearly all the speak- 
ers have been contributed without money 
and without price. Many of the most 
eminent scholars that have attended this 
convention, have even paid their own car 
fare from distant points, in order that 
they might come to this platform and 
plead for the dear old Book. 

And now, before the closing hymn is 
sung, pardon me if I make a personal 


statement—I know you will be inter- 
ested to hear it. Our friend, Mr. Lou- 
gee, referred to the late Dwight L. 
Moody, than whom there was no man 
in this country who more thoroughly 
appreciated this blessed Book of God. 
He did not attempt to meet the attacks 
of the Higher Criticism in a scholastic 
way, because he knew he was not able 
to do that; but he appreciated the fact 
that there were scholars in our Chris- 
tian educational institutions who were 
just as good in point of scholarship and 
of ability, who were able to meet the 
leading scholars of the opposite school. 
He believed, as I know from his per- 
sonal assurance, that the day was com- 
ing when such Conventions as this 
would be called to meet the issue. 
Through The American Bible League 
this is now being done, and for that we 
thank and praise God. 

Permit me to say another personal 
word, this time about Mr. Moody’s son, 
William R. Moody. He is heartily in 
sympathy with us in this work, and has 
enlisted as a member of the League. 
The word I have concerning him is in 
“The Record of Christian Work,” the 
organ of the Northfield work that he is 
carrying on as the successor to his la- 
mented father.—Let me say, by the way, 
that if you are not a subscriber for the 
“Record of Christian Work” you can 
not do better than to take it.—I read in 
that magazine last month the statement 
to which I refer. You know that Dwight 
L. Moody was very careful about invit- 
ing people into the ministry. His son, 
in that last issue, comes out and tells 
of having received a letter from a New 
England minister, stating that during 
the past few months the Conference of 
which he was a member had received 
applications from six candidates for the 
ministry. Of these six, not one believed 
in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, 
and only one in His physical resurrec- 
tion from the dead. In commenting 
upon this, Mr. Moody says—and his 
strong statement filled my soul with de- 
light—: 

“Tt seems to us that a theological sem- 
inary which is sending forth men who 


i10 


*o. 
= . 
* 


doubt the essential truths of Christianity 
may well consider the advisability of re- 
vising thoroughly its curriculum and 
teaching force, or of permanently closing 
its doors.” 

And now one word for the publication 
of my dear friend, Dr. Cameron, “The 
Watchword and Truth.” If you don’t 
take it, you had better take it. You will 
find that he stands true to the old Book 
every time. 

Now, just a word about The Amer- 
ican Bible League. We want to see 
every one who has been in attendance 
upon this Convention a member of this 
League. We ask every one here who 
desires to be practically interested in 
pressing this glorious propaganda for 
the better knowledge of the Word of 
God, to join with us. The annual mem- 
bership is one dollar, and that entitles 
you to The Bible Student and Teacher, 
the official organ of the League, which 
will contain a full report of the entire 
proceedings of the Convention. Later 
on we hope to publish the entire pro- 
ceedings in book form, of which due an- 
nouncement will be made. 

And now in conclusion I have only 
this to say further,—that we are de- 
voutly thankful to God for your moral 
support, for your continued attendance, 
and for the beautiful, loving Christian 
spirit that has characterized all the pro- 
ceedings. I do not think it can be said 
that there has been any spirit of bitter- 
ness or hatred in these sessions. We 
love our brethren on the other side who 
own the Lord Jesus Christ as their Mas- 
ter, even though to some of us it may 
seem that they are groping in the dark- 
ness of their own ignorance of things 
spiritual, things true, and things Christ- 
like. 


Dr. Burrell: 
Hymn No. 608. 

I think President Hall made a slight 
omission in not saying that all Mem- 
bers of the Bible League get what is 
better than the best chromo on earth, 
a receipted bill for their subscription to 
The Bible Student and Teacher. It is 
intended to have that magazine answer 


Now, we will all sing 


a i 


exactly Dr. Worden’s request for in- 
struction along the lines he indicated, 
specifically in behalf of those who are 
engaged in teaching the young. If you 
Sunday school teachers want to know 
the best thought along the line of loyal 
defense of the Scriptures against all 
fuming and malignant and aggressive 
criticism, you will find it in the schol- 
arly contributions made from this time 
on to The Bible Student and Teacher. 
And I hope that the teachers of the 
country and the men in the Young 
Men’s Christian Association will be ad- 
vised with as to whether it meets the 
purpose or not. That is what is intended 
by Dr. Gregory and those who are asso- 
ciated with him in its publication. It is 
intended to stand right in the forefront 
for the scholarly defense of the Scrip- 
tures as the veritable Word of God. 

Now, then, one thing more. Pardon 
me, but this is the only good chance I 
have had since-day before yesterday. 
Not a word has been said, I believe, 
about our Primers. Now, Dr. Gregory 
is responsible for their preparation, and 
he is the best cheese-press in a literary 
way that was ever known on earth. He 
is right up against old Dr. Philip 
Schaff. He knows how to get things 
into brief form. We are to issue a num- 
ber of Primers in the interest of coher- 
ent and comprehensive Bible study. I 
think they will be very helpful for all,— 
he is such a splendid binder together of 
good points. 

I am going to propose that our next 
meeting of the Executive Committee, in 
pursuance of some things that have been 
said here to-day—particularly by my be- 
loved friend, Mr. Lougee, and by that 
most able representative of work for 


Sunday Schools in the Presbyterian 


Church—I am going to suggest that we 
proceed at once to print a number of 
Primers that shall represent the ad- 
vanced scholarship of the day in the 
very briefest form, with respect to the 
defense of the Scriptures against all 
malignant and destructive attacks; and 
that those Primers shall be such as may 
be sold for, say ten or fifteen cents 
apiece, and put into the hands of any- 


Tit 


body that wants to know a little cate- 
chism in answer to the destructive criti- 
cism of these days. I am going to pro- 
pose that we put out something that 
men can get for next to nothing, so that 
no man will ever come up and say that 
the people don’t know what is being 
said by the scholars. The scholars such 
as we have had in this Convention know 
what they are talking about and believe, 
with every drop of blood in their bodies, 
in the old Book as the Book of God,—a 
Mighty Fortress. We will sing it as 
the Germans do; we will sing No. 608 the 
way Luther did, as he stood at the win- 
dow of the Castle and said, “Philip, 
come!” Let us sing it, the old Hymn of 
The Reformation, No. 698, two verses: 
(Singing.) 
“Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.” 


Dr. Burrell: Mr. Hall has had a num- 
ber of letters put in his hands, which 
time forbids the reading of. One in par- 
ticular I would like to read, calling upon 
ministers (that means me, I know; and 
I will, too,) to preach the Bible more 
and more expositorily; and there are 
other letters in the same line. One let- 
ter that I have here is from one of the 
most distinguished ladies in the country, 
whose name is on the lips of all Chris- 
tian people; a lady of wide beneficence, 
who expresses her cordial sympathy 
with our work. 

Now, about that Word, that is what 
we will sing of in the last verse: 

“That Word, above all earthly powers, 
No thanks to them—abideth.” (Singing.) 

Dr. Burrell: I am going to ask Presi- 
dent Hiall to offer the closing prayer. 

Prayer by President Hall: 

Almighty God, Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, author, through the Holy 
Ghost, of Thy Divine Word, we thank 
Thee for this Convention. We thank 
Thee for these discourses. We thank 
Thee for the Divine Truth that has 
touched each and every one of our 
hearts, and for the holy thrill of a Di- 
vine enthusiasm that has filled our souls 
as we have listened to the utterances of 
ripe scholarship, consecrated to Thy ser- 
vice. And now we pray that Thy bless- 


ing may be upon us and upon all Thy 
people throughout the length and 
breadth of this land, as they shall study 
Thy precious Word. Grant that as the 
outcome of this meeting there may come 
a quickened interest on the part of all 
Thy people in the study of Thy Divine 
Volume, and that through that study 
there may come the spiritual birth 


of millions of precious souls, and the 
greatest revival ever witnessed of the 
power of God in the hearts of men. 
And this we ask in the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and to the Glory of God 


the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. 
Amen. 


Benediction by Dr. Burrell. 





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